Early morning heli run over Mullers Station, Awatere Valley, New Zealand
Phase One XF 150MP, 110mm Schneider Kreuznach lens, f2.8 @ 1/800 second, ISO 125 

The simple answer is you just never know! Each year Tony Hewitt and I run a photography workshop at Middlehurst Station in New Zealand where we take a couple of helicopter flights over some really remarkable terrain.

We visit in winter, but it doesn’t really matter whether it’s June, July or August as the weather has its own mind. We like the cold weather and the snow on the peaks. And in the early morning, the rising sun shines a torch along the Awatere River bed and lights up the crack willow trees. I love this landscape and its bare simplicity.

Often our guests will organise an extra flight for themselves if there’s time. On this occasion, I was invited to come along, but I would be sitting in the back behind the pilot, on the right side facing backwards. This is a great seat to shoot from with an open door, but my role was to help our guests get to the best locations for their photos and as they would all be shooting out the left side of the heli, I didn’t have any great expectations for myself. Still, what’s not to like about a heli flight in the early morning?

Still, I took my camera and took a shot from time to time, but the focus was on the left side of the helicopter where the paying guests were sitting.

There’s a lot of discussion about the ‘best seat’ for photography. Some people like to face forwards and get ready as the subject approaches them, others like the security and relative stillness of the backward facing seats. Others like the left because it’s easier to turn their body and press the shutter, some like the front with the pilot because there’s less wind, but you do have to turn further to the left. And while if given the choice I will take the front left seat next to the pilot, so I can direct the pilot where to go, but for taking photographs I really don’t mind because there’s always something going on, no matter what seat you’re in.

I had directed Willy (our pilot) up the valley, but he has flown us along this path so many times before, he really didn’t need any direction. The time was right, just after sunrise and the horizon was clear for strong, direct light and long dark shadows. And even better, I could just squeeze my camera in between the two photographers on the left of the helicopter as this scene flashed past the open door.

This is my favourite photograph of the Awatere River valley at dawn on Muller’s Station, just south of Middlehurst. What I like is that there are essentially three key elements: the river bed, the bare foothills and the brightly lit red trees. By keeping the shadows a little blue, the warm colours of the grasses and trees really stand out.

I had no expectations at the beginning of the flight, but it reinforced the travel photographers’ truism: always have a camera with you because you simply never know when the next great shot will happen.