I wanted to be a scientist. I did a thesis on lions. But I realised photography can show things writing can't. Lions were my professor of photography.

The lions taught me photography. They taught me patience and the sense of beauty, a beauty that penetrates you.

I learned to be a hot-air balloon pilot to take tourists over the Masai Mara Reserve in order to earn some money and finance the work I was doing with my wife, Anne. We were studying the life of a family of lions for more than two years. Taking pictures was a way to capture information we could not put in words.

The key of 'The Earth from Above,' and of 'Home' is to show the beauty of the planet, and thereby to promote love for it.

I'm not an expert when it comes to technology, but what changed things for me was autofocus. I used to have to throw away half my pictures because it was so difficult to get the focus right.

After Hurricane Katrina, over New Orleans, my helicopter crashed and the pilot and I were only saved because we fell on the roof of a flooded house that absorbed the shock. When the helicopter was spiraling downward out of control, I didn't expect to survive at all.