Peering Down Over One Of The Northern Territory's Secret Destinations

This photo essay's written by Canon Photographer, Jay Collier. It's the second installment of our content series, Down Under From Above; a visual celebration of Australia from the air. Check out the first piece with rural landscape photographer, Josh Smith.

"Lake Amadeus certainly delivered; it is rarely seen, remote, yet only 50 kilometres from Uluru. Even though it's so close to an Australian icon, most people have never heard of it, let alone seen it for themselves." 

"A flight over the lake is really is a surreal experience. At 180 kilometres long and only 10 kilometres wide, it spans over 1032 square kilometres, which makes it very easy to cover a good section of the lake with a 55 minute flight."

"Shooting from an R44 helicopter—with the doors off—gave me a wide, uninterrupted view of the dry lakebed, with salt pans scattered through out."

"Converging lines of twisted, cracked earth, and the range of colours from the sand and salt offers a myriad of options to photograph – the abstract landscape photo opportunities over Amadeus are mind-boggling."

"When shooting from a chopper, it's very important to consider a few things: your ground speed, the buffeting and vibration caused by the engine, as well as the focal length of the lens you're using to ensure you have the right settings to capture sharp images."

"Shooting full frame I chose to use two cameras and two lenses: a Canon EOS 5DS R with the Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM II for all the wide, and slightly longer detailed shots where the 50 megapixel resolution would help capture all the detail in order to produce some very large prints; and an EOS 1D X Mark II with the Canon EF 11-24mm f4L USM for some super wide shots."

All images copyright Jay Collier.