Buzzing around the skies in his Cessna 182 carbon fibre plane, pilot Alex MacLean has the opportunity to see the world from a point of view most of us rarely experience. Commercial aircraft packed with half-cut holidaymakers and bored executives blast from airport tarmac to somewhere above the clouds in no time flat; in contrast MacLean lingers at 5,000ft, poring over the ground below looking for the next image to add to his portfolio as one of the pre-eminent aerial photographers.
MacLean studies a world both scarred and decorated by man’s interaction with the natural world – architecture, mining, and farming for example – and the curiosity of human behaviour when viewed at a distance that renders it absurd. His photographs, detached by distance, are both recognisable and yet somehow unreal and model-like. Having gained a Master’s in Architecture from Harvard, MacLean’s fascination with aerial photography came as he took to the skies to better understand urban planning. Aerial Perspectives is a career survey being exhibited at Beetles + Huxley, London, until 29 March.
The Jolly Roger, Ocean City Amusement Park, 2011
Ocean City, Maryland, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
B-52 ‘Bone Yard’
Tuscon, Arizona, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Marias river drainage and pivot irrigator
Loma Area, Montana, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Shipping containers, 2011
Portsmouth, Virginia, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Golf oasis in desert hills, 2009
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Phelps Dodge large open pit mine and Tailings III, 2005
Bagdad, Arizona, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Poolside Tanning, 2012
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Dinghies clustered around dock, 1993
Duxbury, Massachusetts, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Bathers in wave pool, 1999
Orlando, Florida, USA
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
Marked territory, 2010
Viareggio, Italy
© Alex MacLean, Beetles + Huxley
