Above & Beyond with George Steinmetz

2 minute read
Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz offers some 40 aerial photographs from across the globe.
By TIME Photo Department

Angry Birds, beware – a new iPad photography app has cracked the top-40 most popular downloads list in the iTunes Apps store.

Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz offers an interactive behind-the-scenes look at the work of George Steinmetz, a veteran National Geographic photographer known for his breathtaking aerials of the natural world. Above & Beyond showcases Steinmetz’s 25 years of work produced from a motorized paraglider. According to iTunes, the app is the first in a series that serves as “an inspirational story for photographers and non-photographers alike about what’s possible when people push themselves to go above and beyond.”

Russia's Igor Korotkov lands from a jump during men's ski cross seeding runs at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.
Andy Wong—AP

Joe Zeff, a designer and illustrator who regularly produces work for TIME, collaborated with Steinmetz to produce Above & Beyond. Zeff attributes the app’s mainstream popularity to the irresistible nature of Steinmetz’s imagery, as well as the stories behind the photographs.

“This app is so much more than a gallery of pictures. It is a story about a photographer in a flying suit. It is a story about a world that people barely know exists. It is a story about what happens when an individual pushes himself to his limits,” Zeff told TIME.

Over five months, Zeff worked with Steinmetz to produce an interactive story, using the unexpected patterns and majestic landscapes of Steinmetz’s photos to pique users’ curiosity.

“We have provided opportunities for people to interact with photography rather than simply look at it,” says Zeff, noting that the app creates an active dialog that both educates and entertains. Each of the app’s 40 images allows users four options: a zoom function, allowing a full screen, hi-res view of the image; an audio narration by Steinmetz; a link to the actual location of the photograph on Google Maps Satellite View; and a detailed caption that includes information about camera and lens type, ISO, F-stop, and shutter speed. The app offers videos of Steinmetz in action as well as an exploded view of the portable 72-pound paraglider.

Zeff is proud of the final product: “Above & Beyond literally describes the types of imagery we present as well as the quality of the photography and the overall experience.”

—Reporting by Andrew Hinderaker and Vaughn Wallace

Above & Beyond: George Steinmetz is available through the iTunes App store at an introductory price of $1.99.


"A self-portrait over Shibam, Yemen as seen from a remote-controlled camera on the wing of my paraglider. The tower homes of Shibam are built with mud and palm wood coated by a thin skin of plaster. The city was once a vital trading center on the frankincense caravan route between the mountains of Oman and the Mediterranean." - George Steinmetz
George's motorized paraglider is explained in an interactive graphic, allowing the viewer to rotate and explore his machine. George is able to fly the 72 pound aircraft without a license because many countries consider it experimental.
A cave on the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea near Zara spring, where splashing waves have left a thick layer of salt crystals and stalactites.George Steinmetz
Moonlight illuminates the cacti of Isla Incahuasi after summer rains have flooded the Salar de Uyuni to a depth of 15 cm. The island is famous for its forest of "cactus corales temperatura", an endemic specie that favors volcanic soil overlain with fossilized algae. The algae flourished at a time when the Salar de Uyuni was covered in 30-60 m. of water. The cacti grow on average only 1 cm/year, and some are over 12m high. The Salar is the largest salt flat in the world, covering over 10,000sq. km. at an elevation of 3,650m. George Steinmetz
Views of small limestone hills punctuating privately-owned fields of rape plants in flower. The rape seed is harvested for cooking oil, the rape stalks are turned into housing insulation, and honey is produced from the flowers by hives of bees brought in by migratory beekeepers. George Steinmetz
Salt-loving algae gives a red color to the hyper-saline waters of Lake Natron in the Great Rift Valley on the border between Tanzania and Kenya. The lake has an unusual mineral content that is leached from the surrounding volcanos. The temperatures in the salty mud can reach 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit), and depending on rainfall, the alkalinity can reach a pH of 9 to 10.5 (almost as alkaline as straight ammonia).George Steinmetz

More Must-Reads From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com