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Jason Hawkes is the best aerial photographer in the UK - and
probably the best in Europe. 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 Nothern tip of Norway to
Hong Kong and Morocco, and is increasingly in demand in the US - his latest
book shot last month was over Los Vegas' fantastic cityscape. But for now he's
still largely UK-based, and shoots 80% of his work over these shores. Personally
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 (in the UK) 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 perilously
leans out with just a harness holding him in place. He deadpans that there's 'the
potential to be blown around' and admits insurance companies won't touch him.
'I just tell my wife she could live off the stock imagery,' he laughs.
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, in
which case he 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 shot on Hasselblad, but with the
new D3X I can now only shoot on 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 speed up his work rate
considerably, and he estimates he takes five times as many shots as he used to.
This is important for two reasons - first hiring a helicopter is expensive,
about £1200/hour in London, and second, he needs a lot of images. If he's
shooting a billboard image, for example, he needs to provide about 3000 images
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 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 fly less
than 800ft over London. Fortunately, as Hawkes point 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.
'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 and 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 ecommerce
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 LR to correct the white balance if
necessary.
Hawkes can't see many patterns in what stock sells, and says it
often seems pretty random (although in ad shoots, on the other hand, there's a
big trend towards night shots). Nevertheless, he's very clear about why his
images sell and are 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 man-made 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 - you can't tell the scale.'
He's also chipper about seeming-rival Yann Bertrand, whose 1999
publication The Earth from the Air has sold 800,000 copies and toured the
world. 'Bertrand's images have been touring for years,' he 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. 'Occasionally I used to be asked to do it, but I
alway say no,' he says. 'I don't understand people who do that.'
