For award-winning photographer Kacper Kowalski, it’s important to actually be up in the clouds himself. He reveals more about his unusual techniques to Amy Davies
In an age where aerial photography has become more accessible than ever thanks to the commercialisation of drones, there are some who still prefer to put in the hard work of being up in the sky themselves.
For someone like Kacper Kowalski it’s about so much more than the final image, and, as such, there is a real need to shoot his images directly from above, rather than safely on terra firma. It’s an approach that seems to work – in the 25 years he’s been doing this, he’s won countless awards, been exhibited numerous times and is putting together a book charting all of his success.
He’s fresh from taking home top prize in the Professional Landscape Photography category at the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards, where the project shown here on these pages – Event Horizon – clearly impressed the judges.
Hooked I too was struck by the unusual nature of these images. Working on a weekly photography magazine, it’s easy to become tired of the usual landscapes – as stunning as they generally are – but these, shot from an aerial perspective and in monochrome, are striking in a completely different way, and for all the right reasons. Upon discovery that they were shot in person from above, I was even more hooked and keen to find out more. Happily, Kacper was only too forthcoming with some answers.
The process sounds intense. He explains, ‘Before I take off, I go through a ritual. I unfold the wing, warm up the engine, check the apparatus and fuel level, springs, cables and a hundred things on the checklist. I put on my flight suit, helmet, gloves. I watch the clouds and birds as they fly past. I look at the smoke from chimneys to see the wind, but I also track how gusts of wind move branches with leaves and grasses in the meadows. I enjoy the sun on my face. I concentrate more and more. I choose the moment to take off. I pull my wings over my head, add gas and run as hard as I can, careful not to stumble and keep my course into the wind. At a certain point, I break away from the ground and I am flooded with joy.
Turbulent air ‘Flying, I feel space with my whole body. All my senses are involved with perceiving it. I feel the touch of the wind on my face, smell the frost, see the shape of clouds casting shadows, and so on. This sounds rather static, but it isn’t. Clouds don’t just travel with the wind. Sucking in turbulent air from below, they swell or blur under the action of falling cold air masses. The light, the arrangement of observed forms and shapes changes.
‘The engine vibrates, the rotation of the propeller causes vi
