INTERVIEW I
Above all
He flies through the air with the greatest of ease – capturing stunning imagery as he goes. Diane Smyth meets aerial specialist Jason Hawkes 22
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Jason Hawkes is the most successful aerial photographer in the UK – and up there with the best in the world. With more than 25 books to his name and commissions for clients such as Nike, HSBC and American Airlines, he’s carved out a very successful commercial career in a highly specialised niche. But he got into it almost by chance after taking a trip on a microflight. ‘I was studying photography at the time but took the flight just for something to do,’ he says. ‘I was instantly hooked.’
He’s worked all over the world, from the northernmost tip of Norway to Hong Kong and Morocco, and is increasingly in demand in the US – his latest book, shot last month, pictures Las Vegas’ extraordinary cityscape. But for now he’s still largely UK-based, and shoots 80% of his work over these landscapes. His favourite location is the eastern shores of Scotland, because ‘there are some amazing beaches and there is nobody there,’ but he’s often asked to shoot one of the most photogenic of cities – London.
He shoots from a twin squirrel helicopter, often flown by two or three pilots he works closely with. Removing the helicopter door, which is the size of three car doors, to get an unimpeded view, he leans perilously out with just a harness holding him in place. He deadpans that there’s ‘the potential to be blown around’ and admits that insurance companies w o n’ t t o u c h h i m . B u t t h e appositely-named Hawkes is phlegmatic about the risk. ‘I just tell my wife she could live off the stock imagery,’ he laughs.
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Opposite: Sewage treatment plant. Left: Fishermen on sand dunes. Below left: High rise apartment blocks in Hong Kong. Overleaf: Sunbathing holidaymakers in Menorca. All pictures © Jason Hawkes.
Weather man In fact, his work is very dependent on the weather – he avoids windy days altogether, and doesn’t shoot much in winter. It can be extremely cold, so he sometimes puts his battery pack inside his trousers, but he’s given up on gloves. ‘It’s just too difficult to work with them,’ he says. ‘But I always have quite a lot of gear, even in summer. I use stabilisers and I usually shoot on a Nikon D3. When I needed larger files I shoot on Hasselblad, but with the new D3x I can now stick to
Nikon. If the cameras are tethered to a Mac I need an assistant, but usually there’s just no need. Generally, the fewer people flying the better.’ Digital capture, he says, has revolutionised aerial photography. GPS ensures he knows exactly where he was when he took any given shot, meaning he no longer has to take notes on his position (no mean feat when hanging out of a helicopter holding a camera). It’s allowed him to really speed up his work rate, and he estimates he takes five times as
many shots as he did on film. This is important for two reasons – first hiring a helicopter is expensive (about £1200 per hour in London), and second, he needs a lot of images. If he’s shooting a billboard, for example, he needs to provide around 3000 shots in a day. ‘If the ad agency asks you for a very specific shot you have to keep going back, because you’re flying at 60 mph,’ he says. ‘But clients often don’t tell me what to do. We usually keep things pretty fluid – we have a shot list,
but we often abandon it on the day. It just depends on the weather and what you happen to see once you are up.’
Business mind Flying low is more expensive, and you need permission to travel at less than 800ft over London. Fortunately, as Hawkes points out, he has good clients who are able to foot the bill. He’s also savvy about footing the bill for stock shoots – he takes most of his stock images on editorial shoots.
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COVER STORY I
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INTERVIEW I Bass Rock Bird Sanctuary, Scotland.
‘I work with two or three publishers in the UK and have published more than 25 books,’ he says. ‘For Britain from Above, which was published a year ago, I shot 20,000 images – one of the main reasons I shoot books is for the stock. The publishers pay for all of the images, but I’m then free to resell them afterwards. I’ve been shooting books for 18 years, and putting images into stock for just as long. I use Getty Images – they asked me to join.’ He also sells his images direct via a sophisticated e-commerce website he set up back in 2007. Featuring more than 45,000 images and thousands of search terms, from the obvious to the obscure, it’s as professional (if not more) than many agencies’ offerings. He uses Lightroom to organise this vast archive, batch processing and doing most of the captioning automatically. He doesn’t use much post-production, just using Lightroom to correct the white balance if necessary. Hawkes can’t see any patterns in what stock sells, and says it often seems pretty random (although in ad shoots, there’s currently a big trend towards night shots). But he’s very clear about why his images sell and what makes them so commercially viable. ‘Other sites include famous locations shot from the air but my images go beyond that because they include thousands of aerial views that are location unspecific but visually very graphic,’ he says. ‘You’ll find shots of both manmade and natural patterns that aren’t visible from the ground, and the fact that these shots could have been taken anywhere in the country makes them very versatile. Even things that look mundane from the ground look good from the air, particularly if you take shots without people because you can’t tell the scale.’ He’s also chipper about the extraordinary success of his French rival Yann Arthus-Bertrand, whose 1999 publication The Earth from the Air has sold 800,000 copies and toured the world. ‘His images have been touring for years,’ Hawkes says. ‘It ensures that aerial photography is more in the media.’ But there is one type of aerial photography that he will never go near – overhead shots of peoples’ houses. ‘I used to be asked to do it occasionally, but I always said no,’ he says. ‘I don’t understand people who do that. It’s not about the phoOnline
To see more of Hawkes’ images visit jasonhawkes.com.
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