Flight of the humming bird

In 1932, the filmmaker's great-uncle, Cyril Taylor, a commercial pilot who took aerial photographs of Buenos Aires for a living, flew across the Andes mountain range in the smallest ever open cockpit, single-engine plane. His flight was celebrated in the press in both South America and the UK, although it is now largely forgotten. What is the significance of such moments in the intertwined histories of photography and aviation? Taylor’s flight combined a spirit of adventure, an enthusiasm for technological progress, and a hard-nosed capitalist objective. Goycoolea’s film reflects on the interconnection of these qualities as modes of vision that shape both past and present. Flight of the Humming Bird recreates Taylor’s record-breaking journey using 3D animation and aerial drone cinematography of the Andes. Through an evocative first-person voiceover drawn from personal letters and documents in the Taylor family archive, Goycoolea dramatizes his great-uncle’s perspective during his daring flight. Flight of the Humming Bird uses Cyril’s story to reflect on how histories of flight and aerial photography can speak to current debates on drone photography and our inescapable culture of aerial imaging.