WHY?
Flying a helicopter while hungover is not fun, which is why I bought a camera. It didn’t happen often, but when pilots and engineers get together the war stories start flying (pun intended) and it can quickly turn into a memorable night that is easy to forget.
It wasn’t that I felt sick from turbulence while flying hungover, or sick from the pungent smell of jet fuel on my clothes, or from the body odours coming from my passengers crammed into what is basically a mini glass house.
It was the low-level feeling of dread knowing I wasn’t at my sharpest in case I had another engine failure, or worse.
So I bought a camera.
Over six years I had changed address every three months, had six different flying jobs and lived in three different countries. I was sick of making friends through drinking and had been in enough dive bars in remote parts of the world to last a lifetime.
Flying around glaciers and mountains at about 9,000 feet in Nahanni National Park. Taken on iPhone, yuck.
So I bought a camera to break the cycle and it worked.
Sometimes I walked up to twenty thousand steps a day, taking a lot of bad photos but enjoying exploring my new world in Northern Canada. I chose a film camera and fell in love with the slow process.
While flying helicopters I would whizz past beautiful and unique places at 185.2 kmh with strangers in the cabin, but film photography slowed me down and I could really observe and appreciate my world in close quarters.
One day I dropped my camera and put it in for service before going to a gold mining camp in remote Saskatchewan for three weeks. It was such a unique and eerie place at night when the mists descended, the place was absolutely begging for a photo to be made.
But I had no camera and felt lost without it. That’s when I knew I’d be doing photography for the rest of my life
Sitting in a mining camp thousands of miles from home trying to add two numbers together at 10pm and wondering what I’m doing with my life. Taken on my Nikon FE.
major life change
I had been to many unique places and had some pretty crazy experiences, but I was burnt out and sick of living out of a backpack.
Flying helicopters usually meant living and working in areas where there are no roads and no people, which is novel for a while, but also very isolating. As one pilot told me early on, get ready to spend about 80% of your time away from family and loved ones.
Fatigue hit me pretty hard after about 4 hours of flying, but I would sometimes fly 7-8 hours a day doing complex tasks like firefighting or aerial lifting . Adding two simple numbers together mentally is almost impossible after a big day.
After eight months of working in mining camps thousands of miles away from loved ones and a few close calls while flying, I knew something needed to change.
An obnoxious day trip to Nahanni National Park, paid for by De Beers mining group because they were bored. Taken on my Nikon FE.
Currently I am living in Darwin, Northern Territory, enjoying being home every night and documenting life in my hometown through film photography whenever I can get out and shoot.
Darwin is a quirky and unusual place and we have many interesting characters and landscapes here.
After burning around the sky at about 200kmh I’m happy slowing down to observe all the beautiful little things in life and rediscovering my creative side.
Throughout my life I have played instruments and delved into creative writing, but nothing has grabbed me quite like film photography. I am enjoying playing bass guitar in a local band, hiking on the weekends and helping renovate my girlfriends house.
Right now
Hiking to The Cascades waterfalls in Litchfield National Park. Photo taken by my girlfriend on the Nikon FE.