Rich Trenholm
Rich Trenholm writes about digital cameras, except when he's writing about films, music and comics. He does not drink tea and never has.
Friday 5 September 2008, 5:06pm
Jason Hawkes: Aerial photographer
My debonair colleague Alex Sassoon Coby -- of GameSpot UK fame -- has just introduced me to the work of Jason Hawkes. Hawkes' adventurous name suits his profession: if he wasn't an aerial photographer he'd have to be a deadshot spy or two-fisted jungle guide or something. But instead he takes amazing pictures of the world from on high.
I love the idea that at any time you can be walking along and hundreds of feet above your head there's a crazy man hanging out of a helicopter with a camera, capturing the pulsing miasma of light and shade that is the city. It's hard enough to get a picture right in normal conditions, but to do it strapped to a helicopter with the wind whipping at you takes a special level of skill, spunk and possibly insanity.
In this gallery of London from the air, my favourite is the first, showing sodium-lit streets flowing like lava channels through the blue-black stone and steel buildings. The curves of Waterloo station reveal themselves like a Magic Eye painting in picture 10, while Canary Wharf and environs are lit up with unexpected strips of laser-blue and green in number 16.
I also like the view of an M25 junction, truly looking like a demonic sigil scorched into the earth -- maybe Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett were right. Appropriate then, that this is picture number 13...
All of this is tied in with the BBC's Britain From Above programming. This sort of thing is the reason I pay my license fee.
Comments on this post
Stunning.
Posted by Pokeh on Thu 11 September, 2008 11:24 AM
Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment
Articles by Rich Trenholm
Creative Vado goes HD, hungover Cravers muster limited excitement
Crave If you must get excited about the arrival of the new high-definition Creative Vado, do it quietly. Crave is feeling slightly fragile this morning
Internet: The Movie!
Photo Films and the Web have gone hand-in-hand since the first pirate sneaked into the mutleyplex. But what would films based on your favourite sites and software look like? Crave calls lights... camera... action!
Hands-on the Hitachi DZ-HV564: HD on SD
Photo The camcorder market doesn't know if it's coming or going, with the Hitachi DZ-HV564 parachuting in to combine high definition with expandable memory
Hands-on with the Samsung NV9: Cooler King
Photo There's a number of nifty touches on the slinky 10-megapixel Samsung NV9 that make it cooler than the average compact
Hands on with the 24-megapixel Nikon D3X
Photo We've had our hands on the 24-megapixel behemoth that is the Nikon D3X, and we're impressed. Take a look at our photos, which show an average Crave reader doing some world-class holding
Canon HG21
Review Our main issue with the HG21, Canon's high-class, high-definition camcorder, is that it may be too good for its own good. Now that should tell you something. The HG21 comes with a whopping 120GB hard drive, a vast array of high-end features and produces video that is absolutely breathtaking. If you think you can make use of it all, this one's a winner
Hands-on with the Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd
Photo December is officially here and that can mean only one thing: shop faster! If you're feeling the pinch, the Fujifilm FinePix Z200fd is a stylish 10-megapixel point-and-shoot for a very reasonable price. Now shop!
Photos: Hands-on with the high-definition Canon HG21
Photo The Canon HG21 is a high-class, high-end, high-definition camcorder. Take a look at our pictures and forget the credit crunch
