Heart of the Nation: Curl Curl 2096

TIME is money for photographer Remy Gerega. When he charters a helicopter, every minute of airtime costs $20 — which works out at a grand a flight.

141101 TWAM EMBARGO FOR TWAM 1 NOV 2014 NO REUSE FEE APPLIES Early morning swim Curl Curl pool Pic : Remy Gerega Picture: Ca...

TIME is money for photographer Remy Gerega.

When he charters a helicopter, every minute of airtime costs $20 — which works out at a grand a flight. “So you have to make it worthwhile,” he says. He hangs out the door of the chopper with three cameras, shooting non-stop as the pilot cruises the coastline. Afterwards, Gerega trawls through several thousand images to see what he’s got. Sometimes, it’s something special like this.

He loves the contrast in the shot, taken on a frigid early morning in July this year. A heavy swell was battering the walls of the ocean pool at South Curl Curl, on Sydney’s northern beaches — but for the lone swimmer within their protective embrace, all was calm.

Gerega, 29, from Wollstonecraft, became fascinated by aerial photography when he took a scenic helicopter flight in the Whitsundays a few years ago. “The change of perspective was amazing — you get a totally different take on a place,” he says. “I’ve been hooked ever since.”

Born in Perth, he moved to Quebec when he was five, then to California when he was 10, before returning to Australia at 15. He studied photography and industrial design at uni in Sweden, then worked in Iceland for a while. All that travelling has deepened his appreciation of his own back yard. “There’s no more beautiful place in the world than Sydney from the air,” he says. He sells the prints for $595 apiece — a handy supplement to his day job shooting food and products.

It’s a buzz, too. “I’m hanging out of the helicopter as the pilot is banking towards the object I’m trying to shoot, and it’s not easy — I only have a couple of seconds to grab each shot,” he says. “Every time I go up my heart starts thumping.”