Venezuela - Philip Lee Harvey

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Direct Photographic are always happy to offer help and advice to photographers to enable them to push the boundaries of their craft and try new ideas and concepts. So when long-term Direct client and renowned travel and lifestyle photographer Philip Lee Harvey was commissioned to shoot stills to accompany an editorial piece, he discussed with us the possibility of shooting video footage alongside his stills work.

After much discussion we suggested the Canon 5D II, realising space and weight were very much at a premium on the expedition. The resulting footage totalling over 8 hours was then edited using Final Cut Pro and a piece of specialist software which removed the inevitable vibration encountered whilst shooting hand-held video, hanging out of a helicopter!

Although the final video only totals just over 1 minute in length, it is truly spectacular in its beauty.

Here’s the background story:

Philip’s commission took him to the relatively unknown area of grassland and jungle in the heartland of Venezuela. Philip himself was thrilled; his interest in that particular region had been founded many years before and was fuelled by the novel ‘The Lost World’ written in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Philip’s personal experiences were not as extreme as those depicted in the novel or indeed the modern day adaptations, namely ‘Jurassic Park – The Lost World’ and the Pixar animation ‘Up’, but a 6 day trip resulted in the epic video which he has produced.
Philip’s trip was focussed on two major destinations in Venezuela which required the use of Cessna planes, canoes, helicopters as well as reliable footwear to reach and thus obtain the breath-taking shots which he achieved.

The remote landscape and table like “tepui” Mount Roraima which rises unexpectedly and majestically out of the Gran Sabana provides home for extraordinary foliage and plants, together with bizarre volcanic, black basalt outcrops subsequently weathered and shaped by the often inclement conditions atop the mount. Of course the helicopter descent from this unusual setting provided Philip with his awe-inspiring shots of the mount with the mist almost maternally embracing its’ rock face.

After two flights, a 4 hour canoe trip, overnight in a hammock, and a subsequent 2 hour trek in darkness to arrive at a viewpoint for sunrise, the climax of the trip was finally reached when the team arrived at the foot of the breath-taking “Angel Falls” thus named in the 1920’s after the aviator and explorer Jimmie Angel.

Standing at 3,212 feet, almost 1km, it is the world’s tallest waterfall, a “vertical river” which falls from the Auyántepui Mountain. Although difficult to conceive, these falls descend in some of the world’s oldest natural rock formations, remnant geological features of a super continent that existed some 180 million years ago when Africa and South America were still joined. Both mesmerizing in its appearance as well as almost deafening in its sound, the thunderous roar of the water as it pounds the rock below never fails to thrill and excite the lucky few who have had the opportunity to visit this phenomenon.

Click here to see more of Philip’s work.