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B reuer, who already owned aAgusta A109 helicopter, roped inan additional four pilots: RobertPoroli, a Swiss rescue pilot andthe man who would eventuallybe tasked with maneuvering thehelicopter through the intricatetwists and dips that enabled Poliza to get hisshots; Franco Zanini, an Italian who would pio-neer the system that enabled the crew to refuelthe helicopter in minutes; Namibian Pieter Fer-reira and Andrea Guerra, an Italian and experi-enced aerial guide familiar with the Cape toCairo route. Breuer also hired another Cessnato transport luggage, additional gasoline, gen-erators, laptops, satellite antennae and 91 kilosof photographic equipment.

The expedition set off from Hamburg, Ger-manyand tookeightweeks to complete. Poliza,a 21st Century adventurer, documented histravels online and allowed strangers fromaround the globe to track their progress. Priorto this project, he'd lived for three years at sea,exploring and photographing the wonders ofthenaturalworld. He's a proverbial Hemingway except his tool is a camera and his craft isimagery.

EyesoverAfrica is 365pagesofunique imagesof Africa that would appeal to nature lovers,photographers,historians, artists, travellersandespecially to people who love the continent.Poliza's incredibleeye for imagery, coupledwiththe fact that all of the images are taken froma full 90 degree angle from above, at varying

heights of 100, 1000, 2000 feet above, has pro-ducedart fromsomeofnature'smostephemer-al elements: sand storms, floods, flocks of birdstaking off. And he's squeezed inexplicablebeauty from some of Africa's ugliest slums, afootball field inUpington, a luxury resort at Lux-

or, Egypt which prove that beauty really doeslie in the eye of the beholder. The helicopterevenperchedon theedgeof aneruptingvolca-no, in theDanakilDepression inEthiopia,wherePoliza captured astonishing images. The teamusedaglobalpositioningsystem(GPS) todeter-mine the exact latitude and longitude of everyshot.

P oliza, who has a home in South Af-rica and spends about three tofour months of the year here, saysthe expedition confirmed his loveof the continent. I'vebeenanavidfan of Africa for quite a while andit just gaveme an even better per-spective of it and I was happy to add Ethiopiaand Sudan to my list of African countries.

The crew plotted a path across Africa thatruns from Egypt, through the Sudan, Ethiopia,Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozam-bique, Botswana, Namibia and finally South Af-rica. A map in the book details illustrates thepath they travelled and all the whirls and twirlsthey took.

Poliza says sixty percent of the images wereincidental, even though they had meticulouslyplotted their route. He captured images ofbreathtaking natural beauty, such as the ero-sionpatternscreatedbytherunoff in thedesertbetween the Nile and Red Sea, the SimienMountains in Ethiopia, a virga (a cloud burstthat evaporates before it hits the ground, thatcan be deadly to airplanes and that looks likea sandstorm) in the Sudan, the deep pink huesof Lake Natron in Tanzania, caused by rapidevaporation from the lake which cause highlevels of salinity that produce large amountsof salt-loving micro-organisms.

ERTA ALE, ETHIOPIA: An active volcano known for its long-standing eruptions

LALIBELA, ETHIOPIA: The Church of St George, one of 12 rock-hewn churches