Bernhard Lang’s aerial photography: heaven for perfectionists

Being united symmetry, geography, photography, airplane and a professional photographer create unbelievable views on different objects from the bird’s sight.

Bernhard Land is the winner of Sony World Photo Awards for Professional Travel in 2015. Such a high reward and recognition Bernhard has won for his series of photographs Adria — the photos of the beachlines along the Adriatic Sea.

So how actually has Bernhard passed this road and what has motivated him to dwell to such an extreme kind of photoshooting? As the photographer tells himself he “...realised I wanted to be an aerial photographer when I looked out of a window while flying over Russia one day. I saw huge rivers, never-ending forests and geological formations – and I knew instantly that I had to capture that view of the Earth”. And that was the time when Bernhard’s experience he has gotten in Munich university as well as many years of working as a freelance photographer and an assistant photographer became a great benefit. Starting from 2010 he starts working as an independant photographer on his own project Aerial Views, which actually has resulted in winning the 2015 award and on which he keeps working up to now.

A little bit of history. Aerial photography was first practiced in 1858 in Paris. A little later, in 1887, the first aerial shooting with a kite was invented and performed. Nowadays it has become a very wide-spread and, which is more important, a very profitable kind of photo- and video shooting, which is practiced by professionals and amateurs. The main difference that outlines Bernhard’s art from the classic aerial photography is the absence of specific equipment, such as drones, copters or any other flying devices with a camera. All that Lang uses are an airplane and his cameras.

Some sources say that Bernhard straps himself to the bottom of an airplane to take his unique photos. We, journalists, pretty often tend to exaggerate the objects of our articles, but it sounds very extreme and fascinating, the photographer himself denies this theory. He shoots out of the open doors on helicopters and aeroplanes, which is actually also breathtaking and extreme. “No matter how many flights I have accomplished, — accepts Lang, — I am always happy to touch down on the ground”.

Besides the photographs of symmetrical coastlines, Bernhard is also the author of a very powerful series of photos — Mar del Plastico. Here we can feel not only the photographer’s desire to depict the beauty of land views from the bird’s sight, but also to highlight the human’s bad influence on the surrounding world. In this project the author shows more than 350 square kilometers of lands of Andalusia, Spain, occupied with greenhouses, where millions tons of fruit and vegetables are being grown to be exported to western Europe. “…the area has a big environmental impact because of the huge amounts of water pumped out of the ground, — says Lang, — and that causes great trouble to our planet”.

In spite of the warning message of the project Mar del Plastico, its photos still fascinate with their beauty and unique geometry, and some of them even look like real abstract paintings, painted in oils.

As you can see, we can talk about Bernhard Lang for hours, and even longer about his works. That is why we strongly advise you to continue learning more about his art on his official website. Here you will find a phenomenal collection of aerial photos: mysterious circles on the fields, phosphate mines that look like magic wells, and coal mines.

And to finish our talk about Bernhard Lang, we would like to use one of his sayings: “There are really good aerial photographers out there but I avoid being influenced by their work. I don’t want to repeat things”. Thanked to this life and artistic position Bernhard reaches his originality, recognition and awards.

Official website: bernhardlang.de. The materials of Bernhard Lang’s interview to The Guardian were used.

Text and translate: Zhenya Shokun

2016