Eye in the sky

Chi Po-lin should believe in destiny. Named by his soldier father after the zeppelin airship - as transliterated into Chinese characters - the son has gone on to a life that involves the sky.

The photographer-turned-filmmaker's debut film, Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above, is the first documentary of his country that uses aerial photography. With Hou Hsiao-hsien on board as executive producer and Wu Nien-jen, another respected New Taiwanese Cinema personality, as narrator, the film won the best documentary and best original film score awards at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards last November.

A number of years ago, Chi realised he was not cut out for academic life, even though he went to university to study industrial management. What he really loved was photography, "so I worked part-time after school and spent all my money on cameras, films and equipment", the 49-year-old recalls.

After graduating, Chi became a professional photographer. But he soon tired of documenting weddings and turned to snapping the interiors and exteriors of buildings, which sometimes offered the opportunity to shoot from rooftops. "From the first moment I shot from above, I knew aerial photography was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life," he says.

Chi did whatever he could to take pictures from the sky. He asked airlines to let him tag along on their aerial photography flights; he even rented helicopters. He was an aerial photographer for the government for some time, documenting the construction of Taiwan's major development projects.

Chi's visit to Hong Kong in late June coincided with protests against plans for new towns in the New Territories. While he was unfamiliar with conservation efforts in the city, he could see parallels with Taiwan's experience with the environment.