Hawea Flat film-maker and producer Antony Hansen was one of the first New Zealand skydivers to strap on a camera and start taking aerial photographs of people as they plummeted towards the earth at speeds up to 300kmh.
His passion for combining still photography, and later film, with his personal interests of skydiving and snowsports, has allowed him to carve an international career and lifestyle recording the extreme-sport activities of thrillseekers the world over.
Mr Hansen will join more than 200 other international skydivers at the 2008 Oz World POPS Meet in Toogoolawah, near Brisbane, which starts on Anzac Day and runs for nine days.
He will log up to 15 jumps every day, filming and photographing the respective competitors from 18 countries, freefalling from almost 4km high through the Queensland sky.
Hansen's camera skills will be of vital consideration for skydivers and skysurfers - competitors who strap a light surfboard-shaped device to their feet and execute different manoeuvres - with the sport judged from a continuous film of the freefalling action.
"You're usually only a couple of metres away from someone and you're both travelling in excess of 200kmh. You need to be that close to get the best shots, but at the same time it can be pretty hairy depending on which freefalling position you're in,'' he said.
Competitors can jump solo, or in groups of up to three or more, and are judged by the number of different shapes and manoeuvres they complete during their 10-20seconds of freefall.
Throw in a skysurfer, whose board can be spinning "like an aircraft propeller metres from your face,'' while filming and the pressure is really on the cameraman, Mr Hansen said.
The 40-year-old married father-of-two started skydiving when he was 16, fresh out of secondary school, and working as a photography assistant in Auckland.
Originally, he wanted to become a top-dressing pilot, but became sidetracked by skydiving, because "at least I was watching pilots, even though I would end up throwing myself out of their plane.''
At first, skydiving was "just a weekend sport'' which, combined with skiing in the winter, was a welcome relief from the monotony of his day-time photography job.
But after moving to Queenstown in 1989 and taking on work as a skydiving instructor, Mr Hansen decided to try photographing clients as tandem skydiving became more and more popular with tourists.
Now, the practice is obligatory and live videos and camera shoots are the "must-have'' proof for thrillseeking tourists.
"Being in the right place at the right time to take the right opportunities has given me a career I could never have envisaged,'' he said.
He moved on to Europe in the '90s where he became involved as a cameraman with the Spanish national skydiving team and worked with skysurfing world champion Juan Ventura Sanchez.
Sanchez shot to fame on the back of a filmed Hansen advertisement for team sponsor Red Bull, which showed the skysurfer pulling shapes while freefalling through the skies above Europe.
Travelling to next week's international provides Mr Hansen with the chance to sample "some summer and warm weather'' after a recent return from the northern hemisphere winter, where he filmed footage for his snowsports television series Freeze TV.
Mr Hansen produces the series, which appears on Sky Sports and is distributed across Australia and Asia to screen for an increasing international audience.
He plans to include footage from the Oz World POPS in his "alternative'' summer sports programme AntiFreeze TV.
