Being a photographer, everything becomes about perspective. How can I change the viewer of my pictures’ perspective of a regular everyday object?  I don’t actually ask myself that but I feel like it’s ingrained in my head. I want to show you the world in a way that you’ve never seen it before and what a better way to do so then to hop on a helicopter and go across the island of the Dominican Republic?

A few months ago a good friend of ours, Richard, calls me and asks me what I’m doing tomorrow.
I tell him I have no plans so he tells me he has a half gift for me. A little confused as to what a half gift is, I ask him to continue. He lets me know that he has a helicopter that’s going across the island, because that’s where it originated, and it will go empty if no one wants to hop in. So, he invited Jade, a couple other friends that work with him, and myself.
As for the half gift part, that was because the helicopter wouldn’t bring us home, it would drop us off in Santo Domingo and then we’d be on our own. It’s not everyday someone offers you a free helicopter ride and luckily for us I have family in the capital so it made the decision even easier. Of course, we accept.

Without many details, except the place and time to meet, we show up and hang around on the beach awaiting further instructions. Right on time the helicopter fly’s overhead and lands on the beach, like a boss. Richard and his family come out of the helicopter, greets us, and tell us to enjoy the ride.

Thought in my head: “Time for some awesome aerial pictures of the Dominican Republic”

– Enjoy the Ride –

We hop in the helicopter excitedly awaiting the beautiful view that we’re about to take in and up we go. We leave from Cabarete so the first sights we see are of the lagoon, beach and a little taste of some mountain scenery.

We had to make a quick pit stop at a nearby airport to fill up on gas so we all got out here and I took advantage of being on the strip, with all the planes, to take some pictures.

Anddd off we went through the mountains, over the rivers, streams and farms of this beautiful country. The helicopter’s eye view of the landscape was perfect. Not too high, not too low.

And then over some small towns and the outskirts of a city.

When you live this far in the middle of nowhere you have to live off of the land.

As we approached the capital, the sun started to set over the mountains creating a beautiful glow over the Dominican Republic.

Taking this helicopter trip made me think about all of the different levels of perspective that you could get of a landscape. You have regular human view, laying down, tree level,  atop buildings, hot air balloons, helicopters, planes and space shuttles, all offering a completely new and unique perspective on the world.

Have you ever ridden in a helicopter or hot air balloon?
How was your experience?
Do you have any pictures that you’d like to share? =D