From our friends at Conservation International
Last year, CI cameraman John Martin traveled to Colombia to document the threatened páramo ecosystemsthat supply critical fresh water to Bogotá. Back in March, we brought you the first two parts of John’s behind-the-scenes look at filming spectacular aerial footage; here’s the conclusion of his story. Check out his previous posts.
Bogotá’s weather can change from one minute to the next. This high-elevation plateau city of about 8 million inhabitants is often blessed with blue skies and plenty of sun, but can also be veiled in fast-passing clouds loaded with moisture. We are on our second day of filming the páramos surrounding Bogotá from the air. Our target site now is the páramos of Chingaza, but the weather forecast provided by the control tower is not favorable for flying there.
Once again, Ron Chapple, director of cinematography at Aerial Filmworks, and I find ourselves waiting in the pilot’s lounge at the airport, enjoying the best-tasting coffee in the world — Colombian! At 11 a.m. we are updated by Captain Sandoval, or Capi Oscar as we call him, that the weather in the mountains is not expected to improve the rest of the day. However, the weather in Bogotá is perfect, sunny with a few clouds. So we carefully design a new flight plan and set out to get the necessary authorizations to fly and film over Colombia’s capital …
Continue reading about A Bird’s-Eye View of Colombia’s Fragile Beauty
