Professional Photographer Feature

The bulk of aerial photography commissioned in the UK is oblique photography for the commercial market.
Buildings, roads, factories, construction sites and large residential properties are just a few of the subjects. Southampton Football Club's new stadium and Tag McLaren's curvy research and development headquarters are just two of the projects keeping Chris Brunnen busy.
His company, CJB Photography in Portsmouth, has been photographing commercial properties and construction projects for nearly 15 years. He has been keeping track of the reconstruction of The Dell football stadium in Southampton (now called Saint Mary's) since the bulldozers steamed in over a year ago.
Barr Construction, the company that commissioned Chris, will keep the photographs for its records and use them to keep track of site management and to check that everything is running according to plan.
Chris is also charting the progress of Tag McLaren's headquarters in Woking, called the Paragon Centre.
"It is amazing," he says, "There is not a straight wall in the building." He flies over the site once a month in a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter, taking around a dozen pictures.
"The Jet ranger is so much more manoeuvrable than a fixed-wing aircraft," he says.
Chris is sometimes approached by estate agents to photograph residential properties and redevelopment sites. "But I'll only do the big houses - we're talking around £1m properties," he says.
The biggest problem, according to Chris, is the weather. "There is an awful lot of planning involved and it can all change if the weather is not good."
So what does he do if the skies open? "I just sit around and wait for the sun to come out. If it doesn't I pull the plug on everything."

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