To Fly: Contemporary Aerial Photography

by Kim Sichel

This book surveys the contemporary art photography movement of aerial photography, against the backdrop of the scientific and historical imagery that preceded it. This global project includes Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri, who surveys Rome, Shanghai, and Las Vegas from a helicopter. Esteban Pastorino Diaz photographs the landscapes of Greece and South America using a kite with a camera mounted beneath it. Terry Evans works with various conservancy groups around Chicago to document the flat views of the Midwestern landscapes. Frank Gohlke engages with the universal destruction of Mt St Helens' eruption and the re-growth of the following decade. Adriel Heisey builds his own planes, and hangs outside of them, to document Native American sites such as Chaco Canyon from a low altitude. Emmet Gowin travels all over the world to record from the air the marks of environmental destruction. David Maisel photographs the Great Salt Lake. Alex McLean flies his plane over a variety of places that are reduced to geometrical colored patterns. Additional artists include Barbara Bosworth, Marilyn Bridges, William Garnett, Mario Giacomelli, Emmet Gowin, and Bradford Washburn.

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2007