Hit the jump for some amazing overhead pictures by Jason Hawkes, a UK aerial photographer.
Hawkes has published 25 books of aerial photography, and is always in demand for clients like big advertising agencies and Wired UK.
Hawkes (left, with one his regular pilots) works all over the world — a recent shoot was over Las Vegas — but most of his work in in the U.K, especially London.
He shoots leaning out of the door of a twin squirrel helicopter, with a tether, of course. He uses stabilizers and often shoots with a Nikon D3 tethered to a Mac.
Digital makes aerial photography much easier. He uses GPS to automatically tag the shots (he used to take handwritten notes) and he can shoot thousands of images every time he goes up. He needs to: helicopter rental is very expensive, and he often needs to clear flights when shooting low over London.
He’s got also got great business sense. He shoots a lot of stock images when flying for a client or for a new book. The book publisher pays for the images but he’s free to resell them afterwards to stock agencies like Getty or through his own site, JasonHawkes.com.
Powered by Adobe Lightroom, the site is a sophisticated ecommerce system with more than 45,000 images, organized by search terms and broad categories like “Patterns,” “Night” or “London.”
Above: A highly retouched night shot of London for the cover of the first issue of Wired UK.
Below: Various shots of London, the Las Vegas strip, the U.K. countryside, Spanish beaches, and Hong Kong.