Pro Showcase Jason Hawkes
Bird’s For aerial photographer Jason Hawkes, the best view of a subject is from up where the birds fly. He tells Matty Graham what it took to get his career off the ground.
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Jason is based near London and has specialised in aerial imagery since 1991. His clients include National Geographic, Samsung, Red Bull and Amazon. jasonhawkes.com
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Pro Showcase Jason Hawkes
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he helicopter door quickly slides back, and a blast of icy wind and deafening noise from the twin-engine aircraft rush into the cockpit. The photographer checks his harness one last time then inches closer to the open door. Now with nothing between him and the city speeding past 1000ft below, he rapidly starts firing off shots... No, this isn’t the opening sequence of the new James Bond movie. This is a normal day at the office for aerial photographer Jason Hawkes – a man who surely has the greatest job in the world? “Yes, the flying is fantastic,” admits Jason. “It ’s not all adventure though – 75% of my time is actually spent in front of the computer editing images.” Jason has been shooting from the sky for over 25 years now and a busy week can see him off the ground every day for up to 5 hours each time. But while he’d like to fly more, the sheer volume of images created means every few hours off the ground translates into eight solid days of editing and captioning – and that’s with the help of an assistant. Hanging out of a helicopter is something many adrenaline-seeking photographers dream of, but for Jason the aircraft weren’t always as high-tech as the helicopters he flies in today. “I was doing a degree in photography when some friends and I went flying in a tiny microlight. I was 21 and being able to shoot from the air was amazing to me,” he explains.
“On the back of selling a few of my early images, me and my friends went out, got a bank loan and bought our own microlight.” After six months shooting from what he describes as a ‘chair strapped to an engine and not much else’, Jason had amassed a portfolio showcasing his aerial photography skills. The portfolio did its job by opening doors, and following a feature in a photography magazine Jason landed a commission from publishers Random House to produce a book of London from the air. He then flogged the microlight to fund the transfer into helicopters. “There are more rules about using helicopters. If you’re flying over London you
“Aerial photography can make even the most mundane subject look extraordinary” need to be in a twin-engine copter, which costs £1200 an hour,” explains Jason. “The main issue is getting the shot within the time limits you have. The meter is running as soon as you lift off the helipad, and you also have to factor in the time to travel to the location.” So, although an hour sounds like plenty of time to get some shots of, say, St Paul’s Cathedral, take away 30 minutes for travelling time and Jason suddenly has just half an hour to get the shot. Banking steeply over the busy London streets while squinting through a viewfinder sounds enough to make anybody queasy. Has Jason adapted to the demands of flying? The London Eye captured with a Nikon D3S for EDF Energy.
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“In 20 years of flying, I’ve only been sick once. It wasn’t pleasant,” he recalls, instantly taking some of that sheen off the idea that this is a wholly glamorous pursuit. Queasy stomachs are temporary, but Jason’s passion for aerial photography has endured for a quarter of a century. What is it about this job that stirs his soul? “Aerial photography can make the most mundane subject look extraordinary,” he says. “People may have seen a view hundreds of times before, but the chances are they’ve never seen it from the air and that gives aerial photographers the opportunity to present a fresh angle.” Jason’s unique views have populated 50 books through his career, but his job has moved towards working for corporate clients – usually design agencies and architects. What’s more, the time of day Jason shoots at has changed too. “These days 50% of my work is at night, which takes longer than shooting in daylight but creates amazing pictures,” says Jason. “I have a special gyroscope mount that stays on the floor of the helicopter and allows me to shoot down to 1/30sec. I attach my camera to it and the gyroscope mount (which is a pricey bit of kit at around £15,000) cancels out any vibrations to produce a sharp shot. I don’t want to push the ISO above 600, so it would be impossible to get the image without the gyroscope mount, which is ironic as the mounts are old technology – in fact they haven’t really changed since the ’60s.” Not all Jason’s kit is quite so expensive. One of the key elements to enable helicopter shooting is a £500 harness to stop Jason falling out. In the camera bag are Nikon D800 and D4 bodies and a mix of lenses from a wide-angle 14mm to a telephoto 400mm, including his workhorse lenses –a 27-70mm f/2.8 and a 70-200mm f/2.8. Jason also packs a Nikon GPS unit to log his position for future use. “The digital age has made this job so much easier,” says Jason. “With film, I had to bring along cameras with loads of backs pre-loaded with film. These days I rarely even have to change the memory card!” While Jason has the best equipment for the job, one element outside of his control is the quality of air. “The air quality is imperative and has to be clean. Haze or smog, a particular hazard over London, will ruin images and won’t show a view in its best light.” In the run up to a shoot, Jason checks the weather multiple times a day and communicates with pilots to find out how conditions are up in the sky. “Sometimes the weather changes too fast and we won’t get off the ground all day.” Once he does get airborne, Jason uses his wealth of experience to spot what will make a suitably graphic image. “Patterns can be a very useful tool with aerial photography. A
client may want a theme within their images, and these patterns can capture shapes or particular colours to tie in with that theme,” he says. “Rural areas can provide good subjects, but there’s something about cities that works so well with aerial photography. London has gone crazy with construction in recent years, so there’s so much more to photograph. The City at dusk is my favourite area to shoot.”
The glitz of London’s City area was a world away from one of the less glamorous jobs Jason took last year, when he was commissioned by a hotel firm to travel to Libya. “It was so hard getting a permit to fly, let alone hire a helicopter through the normal channels. In fact, in the end we just gave someone an envelope full of cash to get us on to a military airfield where there were hundreds of helicopters,” he remembers.
Top Jason makes excellent use of patterns and shapes that can only be captured from the air. These containers were captured with a 70-200mm lens. Above left A unique view of a training exercise over London’s City airport, shot on a Nikon D3. Above right Jason wears cold weather gear when he’s working at altitude to protect him from the icy wind.
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Most of Jason’s work is over cities, but he also flies over more specific sites, like this theme park in Southend-on-Sea.
Pro Showcase Jason Hawkes
Jason’s work takes him all over the world. This is the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring, Yellowstone Park, USA.
Jason Hawkes’ aerial shooting tips
“Drones are too restrictive for me...” The public seems to have an unquenchable thirst for aerial photography at present, which has given rise to the increase in the availability of unmanned aerial helicopters – aka drones – over the last few years. How does Jason feel about this new technology? “Drones can do a good job for low-level photography and are very cost-effective when compared to hiring a helicopter, but I don’t think I would swap them for the helicopters I use. I enjoy being up in the air – it’s part of the job and sitting on the ground just wouldn’t do it for me,” says Jason. “Also, there are many restrictions on where you can use drones and how high they can fly. Drones can only fly up to 400ft, while all my work is between 400ft to 1000ft.”
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Above The surfers and holidaymakers add a great sense of scale to this Cornish beach.
“I looked at the condition of the helicopter I was about to fly – it was a knackered Russian military helicopter about the size of a doubledecker bus – and it didn’t feel good. The two pilots didn’t speak any English and wouldn’t fly where we wanted to go. It was scary and I was glad to get back on the ground afterwards, but I have to admit the whole adventure gave me a buzz.” While Jason doesn’t advise stepping onto arthritic Soviet helicopters, he does have some savvy advice for those interested in taking a first step into the world of aerial photography. “You can capture good images with everyday kit – the lens I use the most is a 24-70mm, but you can get good results with any lens. The most important thing is to make sure you are safe,” he says. “If you want to try aerial photography, a good first step is to head down to your local flying club – just search on the internet to find them. You could go up in a microlight and get an hour’s worth of aerial photography for around £100. Just get out there and give it a try.”
1 Use a fast shutter speed Even in daylight it’s easy for images to become blurred, so it’s important to use a fast shutter speed. The shutter speed shouldn’t fall below 1/1000sec unless you have deep pockets and can buy a gyroscopic mount.
2 Crack composition Aerial photography is no different to landscape photography, in that you need subjects with interesting lines to lead you into the frame and dynamic crops. And don’t forget to work out which light the subject would look best in – midday sun, golden hour glow or maybe a night shoot.
3 Search for the unusual You’d be amazed how things that look ordinary at ground-level can look extraordinary from the sky. A good example is a simple field of crops. From the ground, you wouldn’t bother taking the lens cap off, but in the air, the lines and texture can produce a dynamic image.
4 Get your images seen I think the best route is the one that worked so well for me – get a portfolio together and then get on the phone to editors and picture agencies. It may make you feel nervous, but if you don’t nobody will ever see your work. Even now I will call ten new leads every week to market my imagery.
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