Up, up and away

Edited and updated historical post from www.steers-gallery.co.uk Originally published 16/04/13

It’s easy to see why aerial photography by the likes of Yann Arthus-Bertrand has become so popular. It’s probably the driving force behind the current rise in popularity of camera drones. There is something quite compelling about seeing “the earth from the air”. It’s a perspective we seldom see, and can be breathtaking.

However, remotely controlling a drone from terra-firma cannot possibly compare  with actually being up there like the girl in the “nimble” ads… (ask someone who remembers the 1970s).

So, July 2012 and I’m in a big wicker basket suspended beneath a big red balloon. It was a warm, slightly hazy and remarkably still morning at Etchinghill. In fact, so little wind was there that, after drifting lazily this way and that trying to find some direction from breezes at varying altitudes, we eventually came back to earth on the same golf course from which we had taken off some 90 minutes earlier. Continue reading “Up, up and away”