The most surprising fact about Terry Mclaughlin, a travel and aerial photographer who is famous for capturing incredible bird’s-eye views of cities such as Los Angeles, Shanghai and Taiwan from thousands of feet in the air, is that he is afraid of heights. “The older I get, the less I like being on the edge,” he says. “Some of the kids I follow hang off cranes and the sides of buildings by one hand. I couldn’t do that; I would die.”
Instead, most of Mclaughlin’s images are taken either from a helicopter—he travels with an extensive gear kit that includes two Nikon camera bodies and seven lenses—or with a drone. “Rather than taking risks, I just chilled out and got a drone,” he says with a laugh.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, Mclaughlin has taken photographs since high school, but he didn’t begin a career in photography until five years ago. At the time, he was working in the hospitality industry in Las Vegas. He got inspired to capture aerial photographs of Los Angeles, to where he later moved, by Instagram accounts he followed: @trashhand, @13thwitness and @urbexpeople, to name a few.
Gaining followers on Instagram (he posts under @asteryx) took a considerable amount of hustle. “I had to work hard on it,” he says. Mclaughlin began reaching out to Instagram users who had massive followings, and asked them to do collaborations. A few, including @cole_younger_ and @tonydetroit, both of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers, gave him big breaks by tagging him in posts.
An aerial photo of Hong Kong. Photo © Terry Mcloughlin
Before long, he was hired by Elite Helicopter Tours in Los Angeles to take aerial photographs for their social media accounts. The combination of outreach within the Instagram community and commissions from brands was the key to Mclaughlin’s success. Today, he has over 298,000 followers, and regularly posts content in collaboration with brands including Audi, Bose, Bulleit Bourbon, Express Men, Pandora and PUMA Football.
Officially, he’s known as an “influencer,” but Mclaughlin’s passion for making images is rooted in his desire to travel. Before accruing his following on Instagram, Mclaughlin didn’t have much interest in seeing the world. “And then, all of a sudden, once you become a photographer, you want to see everything,” he says. Currently, he spends at least two weeks out of every month on the road—all expenses paid by a liquor, tech or camera company who has hired him to shoot unique branded content in whatever exotic location he chooses.
He keeps costs low by traveling with his girlfriend, who serves as his model—“I like to have humans in my pictures just for scale,” he explains—and by staying in Airbnb rentals, where he can cook and do laundry.
Mclaughlin’s photography has grown into a multifaceted brand. Along with shooting branded content and aerial photographs for his Instagram account, Mclaughlin has also recently shot concert photographs at Coachella, and for the Smashing Pumpkins, as well as an advertising campaign for adidas. He was also recently named one of the #Nikon100, a list of 100 emerging visual storytellers published on Nikon’s website earlier this year. Mclaughlin pulls in extra revenue by holding contests for his followers, and giving away gear from companies including Adorama, Peak Design and DJI. The relationship is symbiotic—the more collaborations and giveaways he does, the more followers he gains. The ultimate goal, however, is to keep moving—dream locations on his list include Cappadocia, Turkey, and the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. “I would just like to stay traveling the world,” he says. “I get so jealous of the guys who do that.”
—Brienne Walsh
This story originally ran in PDNedu‘s Fall 2018 issue which you can read for free here.
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