Robert Cameron, High-Flying 'Above' Photographer, Dies at 98
One of Robert Cameron’s thousands of vibrant color aerial photographs zeroes virtually straight down from above the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge to its anchorage, the reddish hue of the majestic structure glowing in a setting sun.
Another captures a stretch of Queens Boulevard, the multilane vehicular spine of one of New York City’s five boroughs, showing its cars, walkers, stores and trees dotting into the distance.
Then there is a close-up of rock climbers dangling from El Capitan, the 3,000-foot sheer granite peak in Yosemite National Park.
Three months after he last rode shotgun in a helicopter, pointing his Pentax camera (mounted on a gyroscope to offset the vibrations), Mr. Cameron, the creator and publisher of the popular “Above” series of photography books for the coffee table, died on Nov. 10 at his home in San Francisco. He was 98.
The death was confirmed by his son Tony.
Mr. Cameron’s last shoot traced the steep hairpin turns of Lombard Street, one of his favorite spots — from the air or on the ground — in his beloved San Francisco.
Although he produced four “Above San Francisco” books since starting the series in 1969, Mr. Cameron’s passion for panoramic, yet often vividly detailed photography took him far afield. His 19 “Above” books, each with about 150 photographs, include neighborhood-by-neighborhood overviews of Paris, London, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, San Diego and Seattle. Then there are the volumes showing the natural wonders of places like Yosemite, Big Sur and Hawaii.
In “Above Paris,” Mr. Cameron’s bird’s-eye shots of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame reveal the Gothic structure’s gargoyles and flying buttresses. In his New York book two overlapping panoramas show the virtual wall of buildings stretching along Central Park West from Columbus Circle to 110th Street. But a close-up of the American Museum of Natural History focuses on its Romanesque stonework, and even shows which of its windows have their shades drawn.
“He had a very knowing eye,” Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine and a professor of architecture at the New School, said in an interview on Thursday.
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Another captures a stretch of Queens Boulevard, the multilane vehicular spine of one of New York City’s five boroughs, showing its cars, walkers, stores and trees dotting into the distance.
Then there is a close-up of rock climbers dangling from El Capitan, the 3,000-foot sheer granite peak in Yosemite National Park.
Three months after he last rode shotgun in a helicopter, pointing his Pentax camera (mounted on a gyroscope to offset the vibrations), Mr. Cameron, the creator and publisher of the popular “Above” series of photography books for the coffee table, died on Nov. 10 at his home in San Francisco. He was 98.
The death was confirmed by his son Tony.
Mr. Cameron’s last shoot traced the steep hairpin turns of Lombard Street, one of his favorite spots — from the air or on the ground — in his beloved San Francisco.
Although he produced four “Above San Francisco” books since starting the series in 1969, Mr. Cameron’s passion for panoramic, yet often vividly detailed photography took him far afield. His 19 “Above” books, each with about 150 photographs, include neighborhood-by-neighborhood overviews of Paris, London, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, San Diego and Seattle. Then there are the volumes showing the natural wonders of places like Yosemite, Big Sur and Hawaii.
In “Above Paris,” Mr. Cameron’s bird’s-eye shots of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame reveal the Gothic structure’s gargoyles and flying buttresses. In his New York book two overlapping panoramas show the virtual wall of buildings stretching along Central Park West from Columbus Circle to 110th Street. But a close-up of the American Museum of Natural History focuses on its Romanesque stonework, and even shows which of its windows have their shades drawn.
“He had a very knowing eye,” Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine and a professor of architecture at the New School, said in an interview on Thursday.