25 years ago, Jordi Todó, from Barcelona, Spain, casually thought he’d “give aerial photography a try.” Now, he’s the manager of aerial photography for TAVISA (Trabajos de Aviacion, S.A.), controls a photographic archive of more than 60,000 images, and is Latitude Image’s latest Partner.
Jordi began working in different post-production and organizational tasks at TAVISA, a company specializing in aerial photography and advertising. “Though I was always fond of photography,” he says, “I came to the profession by chance; I was helping out a friend who was starting his own aerial photography company. My job, at the time, was to manage the flow of images shot over Galicia and Andalusia from the Barcelona office.”
One day, Jordi decided he should try his hand at shooting the images himself and his timing couldn’t have been better. “My big break happened the year I started, in 1988, when the great urban transformation of [Barcelona] began in preparation for the Olympic Games.” Over the next four years, Jordi compiled an exhaustive survey of the transformation. With a complete archive of the process from 1988-1992, TAVISA, and Jordi, had successfully launched themselves into the world of aerial photography.
Today, Jordi works closely with the same pilot of nearly 25 years, “I always say that 50% of the photo is his because of his skills in getting the aircraft in the exact position needed to take a great photo.” Always equipped with his Nikon D3, Jordi and his pilot work from a Piper PA-18 and contend with the forces of the northern Spanish winds. “I think the worst [of logistical complications] are the winds, you know, because you can’t control them and they really affect our type of plane. Here in Catalonia, if the northern wind blows just a bit strong, we can’t get out.”
Luckily for Latitude Image, Jordi, with his trusted pilot, continues to beat the winds of Catalonia. In his partnership with Latitude Image, Jordi brings the largest collection of aerial images of Barcelona online.