About
There's nothing quite like seeing a place from on high.Hulia Boz is a Sydney based photographer who has become highly accustomed to red carpets and the world of celebrities. But when the thrill of celebrity shoots began to wane, she turned to a different source to find her adrenalin rush: hanging outside helicopters - camera in hand, of course! It is this newfound passion in aerial photography that has seen her spark return, with Hulia simply entranced by what everyday life looks like from a view hundreds of feet up in the air. Leaving the red carpets and celebrities behind, in favour of hanging out of helicopters and capturing the real world.
"The amazing colours that I see with my naked eye looking down, especially over the coastline, are mesmerising. And the scale from up above in the air is something I just fell in love with." Inspired by one of Australia's greatest living artists John Olsen, Hulia wanted to create abstract work herself, without resorting to image manipulation. She spent months researching locations using Google Earth, before discovering the colours of Western Australia, where she found the perfect combination of colours, line, and geometry.
One thing Hulia really gets a buzz out of with aerial photography is that, as a passenger, she can never really have full control of what she is going to shoot. She is always surprised to find new angles and shots. For her, aerial photography is like a field of opportunities, full of the unknown.
"You have this canvas below your feet, looking down through the barrel of a lens, and you're hanging out with the wind blowing your hair at 50 miles an hour. You can never really plan for that frame in advance, until the moment you are up there and pressing on that shutter button. This is what I love about aerial photography the most, unlike a magazine shoot of a celebrity, where every angle and frame is totally planned."
Hulia finds the helicopter rides to be well worth the expense, mentioning that drones, another option for aerial photography, lack the range and quality available to a helicopter shoot. She feels that taking photographs of the ground from an elevated, direct-down position makes her feel more involved in the making of her art work.
Hulia finds the helicopter rides to be well worth the expense, mentioning that drones, another option for aerial photography, lack the range and quality available to a helicopter shoot. She feels that taking photographs of the ground from an elevated, direct-down position makes her feel more involved in the making of her art work.
"I hope that the viewer can really appreciate how incredibly beautiful this country is," she muses. "From the colourful Western Australian landscapes to the coral reefs or the busy Sydney beaches -there are just so many parts of Australia I'm still waiting to explore ."
With a photographic style that borders both fine art and travel photography, shooting from a helicopter has provided Hulia with more than just a new perspective. The seemingly quotidian, when viewed from up in the air, has become a whole new art world for her: "It is simply magic!"
Postcard From Australia reveals a unique outlook on this beautiful country. It gives us a side of Australia rarely seen, revealing a whole new aspect of its beauty through these amazing images taken from the air. Whether hanging out from the side of a Cessna or a helicopter with a harness on, this is what gets photographer Hulia Boz on a high.