Photographing Sir Richard Branson & Royalty

Hi Guys,

Where do I start? 

It began with a phone call from Adventure Base asking me if I was free to photograph Sir Richard Branson climbing Mont Blanc......from a helicopter...... YES!!
The climb Richard Branson was undertaking with the help of Dream Guides was for the charity bigchangecharlitabletrust.org
The Big Change Charity was set up to help to help identify and support projects that improve the lives of young people in the UK.
The Branson family are well-known for their adventurous exsploits and close friend Princess Beatrice was also on board for a true mountain adventure.
It was a great honor for me to be involved in this project and i loved every second of capturing all the photography action from the helicopter. 

I have photographed a few events from a helicopter and on hearing that i was going to be responsible for capturing these images for Hello Magazine & the worldwide press i realised that it would be very important to work with somebody who is at the top of their game, so i called upon the talent of internationally aclaimed photographer Erlend Haugen of Steep Cam www.erlendhaugen.com.

Much of this shoot actually happening depended on many things, obviously the weather, the team making it to the summit and also timings.

On the morning of the shoot i woke to find the weather looking good. 
Although the sun had not yet come up i could feel in my bones the shoot was going to happen.
I jumped in my car and headed down into Chamonix where i picked up Erlend and headed to the Courmayeur Helipad.

From this point my video will show you what happened next.

Below is my link to the video i filmed using Go Pro Hero 2's 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eYknv57i_9s

Here is also Sam Bransons Video of the event. Many of the helicopter scenes in this were taken from my Go Pro Footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=ERUNhBU5kDM

Before we took off in the helicopter i managed to attach my Go Pro on the base of the heliocopter and this is where i got some of our best action shots from the heli ride.

When we were airborn the views around MontBlanc were surreal and so magestic. It still is difficult to put into words how beautiful it was looking out first thing in the morning over the alps. Can life get any better?

Eventully we swooped across the Bosses ridge to see the Dream guides leading the big change crew across the mountain having carefully coordinated the timings of the helicopter and themselves.

It all happened very fast and looking through my camera it was tricky balancing the light with the morning shadows along with the movement of the helicopter.

We circled the Summit 4 times until finally the crew including Sam & Holly and Richard Branson, Beatrice, Isabella, phil and the others made it onto the summit of Mont Blanc. What an excellent achievement.

With the guys on the ridge i aimed the camera lens towards them and as i clicked my finger i could feel that Erland and i were capturing some superb images.

With that we were soon flying back to the heliport.

When we got back to the heliport, i excitedly called my wife and oranganized to meet her and take her to the Cabane for a celebratory meal.

It really was a moment in time i will never, ever forget.

Now, i thought this was the end of the story until i got a call from Tiffany & Andy from adventurebase who asked me if i could present my photos to the Big Change Crew & Branson himself that evening.
I put the video and photography footage together in record time and presented it at the prestigious Chalet Des Drus one of the fantastic HIP chalets www.hipchlaets.com

They all watched my video and replayed it many times over and over again.

Branson walked over to me and said he thought the pictures were brilliant and we had done a great job.

So i guess it was Job Done.

My pictures were published in Hello magazine.

Ok thats all from me! 

Speak soon

Big love

Charlie 

Thanks goes to 

Andy Eggleston
www.steepcam.com
www.adventurebase.com
www.dreamguides.com
www.bigchangecharitabletrust.org
www.hipchalets.com

& ofcourse Mr Branson