One of the more unusual assignments I’ve worked on as a photographer in Taiwan was back in 2024.

Nature, the science journal, is a regular client. Specifically, I write and shoot for the section ‘Where I Work’. Besides in Taiwan, I’ve photographed scientists doing fascinating projects in Australia, China, Japan, Laos, Mongolia and South Korea: everything from scientists building quantum computers to trying to clone the Tasmanian Tiger back into existence.

This particular assignment was on Rebecca Hsu, a forest ecologist for the Taiwan Forestry Institute in Taipei. To shoot this story, I trekked with Rebecca and documentary filmmaker Tobie Openshaw to a cloud forest in the mountains in Chilan. There, at around 1,900m above sea level, Rebecca climbed ‘Great White’, a giant Taiwania more than 70 meters tall and up to a 1,000 years old.

Once Rebecca reached the canopy, she gathered data on how climate change impacts giant trees.

Apart from the interview, the entire shoot was captured with a drone. I was relieved that the object sensors did their job. If the little drone had a collision with any of the branches, there would be no way to retrieve it from the mountainside.

The picture that ran in the magazine, was one shot from a distance that show the immense scale of the tree with Rebecca a tiny yellow-helmeted figure on its trunk.