I love shooting from helicopters.
Shooting from jets is OK; small airplanes are OK; hot air balloons are OK, but from helicopters with the door off is the most fun.
I don’t get sick on airplanes. I’m not that good on boats, but in the air I’m OK.
When I started in photography, one of my favorite aerial shooters was Bill Garnett. Today it’s Jeff Milstein. You should look them up.
Shooting aerials is such a privilege and joy—to see things that for millennia were not seen by anyone in history. I never take it for granted.
As with shooting on the ground, I try not to go with a plan. If you’re on a commercial jet, or in a hot-air balloon, you have no say whatsoever on where you’re going so you might as well relax. In a helicopter you develop a way of communicating where you want to be to the pilot with hand signals, or over headsets.
The helicopter is the best, but the fees are high. Fortunately I have a friend named Hale Gurland who is a pilot and didn’t charge me when when we went up in his helicopter. But he wouldn’t go back to give me a second chance on anything.
I called it drive-by shooting.
