Images taken over the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd August 2003, showing people viewing the prints at the London Eye.
Aerial photography commissions & library.
http://www.jasonhawkes.com email: library@jasonhawkes.com
Tel : +44 (0) 118 9242946 Fax : +44 (0) 118 9242943
Catch this James Bedding reports on an open-air photography exhibition in London (Filed: 26/07/2003)
For a day-tripper or sun-seeker heading for England’s south coast, the M25 is an unlikely source of aesthetic pleasure. Yet this photograph (below) - depicting the knot of slip roads at the junction with the M23 - shows that, from high above, even a motorway intersection can be a thing of beauty.
This is one of more than 50 images by the aerial photographer Jason Hawkes that are on show at an exhibition that opens on Monday at the British Airways London Eye. Other subjects are perhaps more conventionally appealing: fields of poppies and rape; a giddying view way down on to Longships lighthouse, off Land’s End; a group of seals, seen from on high, basking on the shore of Loch Fleet in north-east Scotland. Familiar subjects take on a fresh appearance seen from the sky. An image of the multicoloured speckling of tents at a music festival in Reading has the effect of a pointillist painting.
Not surprisingly, the venue itself appears in some of the photographs. After all, the London Eye is the highest observation wheel in the world. From the summit at 440ft - some 100ft higher than its nearest rival, in Yokohama Bay - passengers can see Windsor Castle, 25 miles away.
To obtain his images, however, Hawkes left landmarks and terra firma well behind. He photographed his subjects from a helicopter with one of its doors removed - leaning out, feet on one helicopter skid and secured by a harness. Aesthetes wishing to take their own aerial shots might prefer to board one of the Eye’s 32 capsules - riding the 30-minute loop at a genteel 10in a second.
‘Aerial: the view from above’ runs from Monday July 28 to September 7. The photographs are on display in the open air, close to the base of the London Eye on the South Bank and can be viewed free of charge.
www.ba-londoneye.com. To view other photographs by the same artist, see www.jasonhawkes.com.
Aerial photography commissions & library.
http://www.jasonhawkes.com email: library@jasonhawkes.com
Tel : +44 (0) 118 9242946 Fax : +44 (0) 118 9242943
