Magnum Photos Blog

The Earth from Above 

July 7, 2012 
by Jonas Bendiksen 
When I reached Moscow to shoot my Geographic story on dacha culture, I was reminded of how flat much of Russia is.

We had not budgeted for any aerial shooting or airplane rentals.

But thanks to my good friend Anton Jdanov we ended up driving thousands of kilometers with a rented 14-meter ladder on top of our car. To be perched 10 meters above someones carrot field waiting for pictures around you isn't necessarily the most discreet way to get images (once we were thrown out garden plot compound by an angry babushka who accused us of espionage) but to my surprise I caught some of my favorite moments in the story from up there.

From National Geographic july issue:

<a href='http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/russian-summer/bendiksen-photography' target='_blank'>http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/russian-summer/bendiksen-photography</a>

Thanks to Anton at Planetpics.ru for the ladder pictures!