Toby Harriman is a Creative Aerial Director & Content Producer currently based in San Francisco, California. With his main focus in the Aerial & Drone industry, he also enjoys working with Timelapse, Cinematography & Photography. A visual explorer whose travels take him from Hawaiian shores to hanging out of helicopter doors, from moonlit desert vistas to the edge of skyscraper rooftops, Toby seeks out creative edges that captivate. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic Travel, and he is the founder of Planet Unicorn, a multi-faceted company that creates and curates original stories from Toby himself and other artists from around the globe, it features a fine art gallery as well as a separate studio/production unit working with various clients helping with their content needs.
Photographers all over the world are still creating and capturing amazing shots. And, even though we are respecting the requested rules in place to keep us safe, it doesn’t mean we can’t still dream and create. Late last year, we had the pleasure of meeting up with Toby Harriman in San Francisco for the creation of a Flickr Feature about his work. He took us up on a helicopter ride around the city and captured some amazing photos along the way.
So, even though we can’t be physically in the clouds at this moment, we can definitely see what he saw through his lens. To tell an even deeper story, we asked Toby to select his three favorite photos from that journey and here are his thoughts in his own words:
Toby: “From the day I got into photographing San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge, my goal was to shoot it from every angle possible. This is one of those shots I can add to my collection proudly. It’s a shot that would be illegal by drone (unless you have a huge budget to shut down the bridge and even then, probably near to impossible) and can really only be done by helicopter while passing en route over the bridge, between the towers. Everything lined up perfectly for this, we took a few passes back through to get one facing each direction. But this one came together with the sunset and Sutro Tower in the distance, the traffic and the perfectly timed sailboat on the left side. Always happy when a shot comes together!“
Toby: “Because I have been shooting aerials over San Francisco since 2013. Most of my work comes from before the time they built these two brand new skyscrapers, Salesforce Tower and 181 Fremont as well as the beautiful Salesforce park you see taking up many blocks between them. I actually worked with 181 Fremont back in 2013 shooting all the backplates for their initial marketing material and photography renderings, which they did such an amazing job on, they still use them to this day! So I have a personal attachment to these buildings and followed their uprising since the start. My goal for this shoot was to finally get some photographs of the buildings finished. I liked these two shots, one from sunset and one during blue hour. It’s pretty cool to finally have a huge public park right in the middle of downtown.”
Thank you so much, Toby! And, if we can ask, “What words of wisdom would you share with any new or budding photographer?”
Toby: “Don’t be afraid to follow your personal passion. It’s easy to get caught up in trends and someone else style. Own it and you will be surprised by the value of a smaller engaged audience than a large useless audience. You can still get work doing what you love and not even exist on a platform. Flickr is great because you can be personal or private and use it in many different ways. You can join groups, just share with friends or use it to store all your full res files and have a cloud backup for an amazing price!”
Thank you for sharing! Watch Toby’s creativity in action in this Flickr Feature video.
Follow Toby Harriman on:
– Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tobyharriman
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tobyharriman
– Twitter: https://twitter.com/tobyharriman
– YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbSd5CkcsPPp_SBpoIVfgkg
– Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/tobyharriman
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobyharriman
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tobyharrimanvisuals
