The huge majority of the photographs that we see and take of the world about us reflect our own eye-level perspective. When photographers stray from this eye-level view it is usually by inches and feet, a quick shot from the hip or waist, or standing on a chair, or a sitting viewpoint to reflect a child's world. We never see the worm's eye view of the human monsters that stomp around the surface of the earth and when we do see pictures taken from the air they somehow have the aura of the map maker about them, the feeling of a technician imposing geometric order on the world below rather than that of a God looking down upon creation. The missing ingredient in most aerial photography is mankind.
The Earth from the Air manages to shake off this straitjacket completely. The photographs engage unashamedly with humanity below. The photographer, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, looks down and, unusually, the world stares back. The resulting book is stunning. The result of a five-year project flying over 60 countries on every continent is a wonderful celebration of the earth we inhabit. Unlike the vast majority of aerial photographs there are people, or there is evidence of human activity, in most of the pictures, from the first photograph of a man reaching up, arms outstretched, from his tiny, plant-filled boat on the Nile, to a small plane flying over a crystalline formation on Lake Magadi, Kenya, to a couple sunbathing nude on a beach in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands.
It is the frequent use of lower altitudes which makes this book so different, which clearly measures man's status on Earth in relation to the surrounding environment. The all-colour photographs are blown across double page spreads for maximum impact, with regular pull-open pages containing detailed text information about the context of each picture. Superbly printed and weighing in at 424 pages, this is the kind of volume that gives coffee-table books a good name.
By contrast in Ireland - Aerial Views by Klaus D. Francke the photographer seeks out the really odd colours and light that you see in the Irish landscape, especially in autumn and winter near the west coast. The heathers, the trees, the algae, the sand and of course, the sea, all appear in low-lit, luminous colour as fascinating abstract studies.
The best of these, such as a view of "Moorish River near its mouth at low tide, County Donegal" are really stunning, one of several photographs which could hang on any gallery wall as a colour etching by a master printmaker. The sheer luminosity and saturation of the colour, however, sometimes looks unreal, as though tweaked just a bit too far in the printing or plate-making, and this takes from the strength of some images.
With the inclusion of several pictures of ring forts and the magic light of a rainbow in the cover shot it's a fair guess that this volume is aimed primarily at the tourist market but it does what it sets out to do quite well. For the £30 cover price, however, I'd add a fiver and go for the Yann Arthus-Bertrand book - why settle for Ireland when you can have the Earth?
Frank Miller is an Irish Times photographer.