Longitude Latitude Solitude: Andrew Vukosav’s happy place

His old Cessna once belonged to the DEA, and was used to patrol America’s drug-smuggling badlands. Now Andrew Vukosav is using the plane for an extraordinary photography project.

Stunning: the Ord River Estuary from 3000ft. Picture: Andrew Vukosav

One door closes and another one opens, the old saying goes. It’s certainly true for Andrew ­Vukosav. He spent nearly four decades as a globetrotting advertising photographer, working for brands including Coca-Cola and Singapore Airlines, until Melbourne’s interminable Covid lockdowns slammed the door shut on his career. “When the lockdowns ended, many of my business contacts had retired or moved on – it felt like I’d been left behind,” the 59-year-old from St Kilda says. But another door opened, and a new sort of life beckoned: a life without deadlines, or demanding clients. A life spent capturing fine-art images of Australia’s dazzling landscapes from 3000ft in his Cessna. He’d been working on his aerial series Longitude Latitude Solitude since 2016, but it had always been a part-time passion. After the pandemic, he went all-in. “And I haven’t looked back,” he says happily.

He has criss-crossed Australia, clocking up nearly 400 flying hours and 94,000km, always with his eyes on the landscape unfolding beneath him; when he sees something interesting he’ll remotely activate the shutter on his camera, which is mounted outside on a wing strut, pointing straight down. He loves the solitude (“You have a lot of time to think,” he says), though he’s never really alone up there: in the cockpit beside him is a vial containing the ashes of those he’s loved and lost: his dad Anton, his old mate Bob, and his staffie Frankie. There’s always new people to meet at ­remote airstrips, too – although first, before landing, the veteran pilot ­always does a couple of low passes. “To scare off any kangaroos, camels or emus,” he explains.

Vukosav makes enormous prints – typically 2.4m by 1.4m – which he sells mainly to interior design firms fitting out corporate spaces or hotels. He also exhibits: Longitude Latitude Solitude has recently shown in Paris, Madrid and Berlin, and is now at the M2 Gallery in Sydney’s Surry Hills. This particular image shows a section of the Ord River Estuary in the Kimberley. “One of my favourite places,” he says.

Incidentally, his 1982 model Cessna – christened Valerie, after a favourite Amy Winehouse song – had a different sort of life once, too. He bought the plane at a US government surplus auction in 2012. “It previously belonged to the DEA – the Drug Enforcement Administration – and was used to patrol the border with Mexico, looking for illicit activity.”