9 ms·

Drone photography is transforming how we tell visual stories. I've been doing photography since college and rather passionately for the past 15 years (some of m

Drone photography is transforming how we tell visual stories. I've been doing photography since college and rather passionately for the past 15 years (some of my work here[0]). I have literally changed my perspective, and I am obsessed with it. Shooting from a drone, with a straight-down vantage point, has allowed me to explore my coastal muse with a brand new eye To me along with mobile phone, the drones are transforming how ordinary people are able to capture and tell amazing stories. You can argue drone photography, is the most important camera innovation of the past 100 years. Sadly, there are a lot of backlashes against it. Before I became a convert, I found them annoying, too. People do not like the buzzing sound (which I agree and I'm glad companies like DJI are doing innovations to reduce the buzzing sound). There are a lot of privacy concerns, which is fair. But I don't see that privacy concern in public areas any worse than mobile phones. I just hope that drone operators use common sense and be considerate and not ruin the use of this amazing technology, for the rest of us. [0]https://www.eyeem.com/u/photojournalist https://www.eyeem.com/u/photojournalist

smhost 8y ago
> I have literally changed my perspective, and I am obsessed with it. Shooting from a drone, with a straight-down vantage point, has allowed me to explore my coastal muse with a brand new eye Sounds very Jackson Pollock. > There are a lot of privacy concerns, which is fair. But I don't see that privacy concern in public areas any worse than mobile phones. This directly contradicts your earlier point about being able to see things you couldn't before.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I think the idea is that anything in public can be photographed at any time by any one. If you're out in public, someone could photograph you with a cell phone from the street, from a building, from a helicopter, etc. Drones don't change that equation in the slightest. What drone photography does change is how easy it is to photograph angles that were difficult before, not the fact that it's possible. Which is the same for mobile phones. Since the invention of the camera, it's always been possible to photograph anything anyone anywhere. Camera phones just made it easier, since now nearly everyone has a camera. But that doesn't mean it wasn't possible before, or that you have less privacy in public places. You've never had privacy in public places.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Of course they do. My yard has a 6' fence, no houses overlook it, it's therefore private. A drone changes that.
    - freehunter 8y ago
      I guess you missed the part where everyone was repeatedly saying "public space".
josephjrobison 8y ago
The fear of 100 drones in the sky of every neighborhood, and neighbors shooting them out of their backyard if they cross the property line thankfully hasn’t come true yet. And we’re a few years into consumers buying pretty powerful toy drones like the Magic Pro. I have seen more no-drone signs up at National sparks such as Joshua Tree, but that’s fair enough in spots like that. Hopefully the positive trend of human drone harmony continues!
hoorayimhelping 8y ago
It gives a new perspective but it doesn't allow for very visually interesting photos. The shots are (by nature of drone photography) almost always composed exactly the same. The different landscapes in the article are beautiful, but there are basically two compositions in the article: the majority have a vertical composition looking straight down with a path or river going from top to bottom (sometimes it goes from left to right). There are a couple of shots that show a landscape from a non-vertical angle. >You can argue drone photography, is the most important camera innovation of the past 100 years. Really? I mean you could, but it seems silly. I'd say digital image sensors are by far a much more important innovation. Without those, you don't have drone photography, or you do, but it's so prohibitively expensive that it's not available to anyone who can do interesting things with it. Without digital image sensors you don't have camera phones, you don't have GoPros, you don't have dashcams, you don't have bodycams, you don't have drone cameras, you don't have cameras mounted on the sides of rockets, etc. You don't have the DSLR revolution that got high quality cameras in the hands of amateurs last decade.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Well, you had the Estes Super 8 rockets. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l65CvkeYowM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l65CvkeYowM
  - jeremy7600 8y ago
    Thanks for the link, that was very well made. Always wanted an Estes AstroCam when I was growing up in the late 80's early 90s.
- salimmadjd 8y ago
  I'd say digital image sensors are by far a much more important innovation I thought about this statement before writing it, and I know what you mean. But the way I justify this view is that with film vs digital I was never able to take any different images. Sure, digital photography is at the heart of drones. But A digital camera didn't give me an entirely a new way to easily tell a story. Of course, I could rent a helicopter (almost impossible for some locations and prohibitively expensive) but to carry a small gadget and send it up to tell a story is something that has only become possible recently. Take something like this [0]. It's a former spy radio satellite the operated in current Latvia during the USSR days and now has been turned into a radio telescope. It would be impossible to tell a story about it's location in middle of trees, etc. unless I had a helicopter. Or how do you show there is a monument built on top of the hills in Buda side that overlooks the river on Budapest. You can not [1]. As I said, it gives you abilities to tell stories that you could not do with an analogue camera. [0] https://www.eyeem.com/p/121629319 https://www.eyeem.com/p/121629319 [1]https://www.eyeem.com/p/110013323 https://www.eyeem.com/p/110013323
ethbro 8y ago
The amazing thing is to think we've only had aerial photography since ~1860 (so 58 years). And people in the air at all since 1783. Before that, literally no one had seen the world from that vantage point. Baring a convenient mountain.
- ISL 8y ago
  2018-1860 = 158.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    That's what I get for multitasking. Thanks for correcting.
- emaginniss 8y ago
  I'd love to hear your perspective on life as someone living in 1918.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    Well, the Kaiser is out and the War is over! If it weren't for the flu in Spain (although I've heard it showed up in other places...) then it would be a good end to the year. Regardless, I thank God we'll never see such senseless bloodshed again.
veidr 8y ago
Since nobody else has said it in this thread: wow, some of your photos are fucking awesome! I especially loved the pensive aahhhdammit face composed of the moon on orange sky with three birds.
- salimmadjd 8y ago
  Thanks! Two interesting thing about that photo. 1 - It's near the arctic circle by the Lofoten area in Norway. In or near the arctic circles the sun and the moon (in winters) stay very low, so you get this very long period of low angles of the moon or sun. In San Francisco, you are rushing to capture 1-2 shots before the moon has moved a few degrees upwards. 2 - that moon image was at the opposite side (if I remember correctly) of the picture below it [0] which is a reminder to always look behind you, during dramatic colors. [0] https://www.eyeem.com/p/122317208 https://www.eyeem.com/p/122317208
puranjay 8y ago
Man, your work is beautiful!
blhack 8y ago
Right there with you. I recently got a DJI spark as kindof a toy, but was blown away at the incredible videos and photos I was getting with it. It made me a little sad to find out that some cities in my metro area have ordinances banning me from using them there. So for instance: I can't fly them at family gatherings to take videos of us.
moosehawk 8y ago
> Sadly, there are a lot of backlashes against it. I went to New Zealand last year for 3 weeks. It was the most beautiful place I've visited in my life. And not just visually beautiful, but audibly beautiful too. The ambience made for an incredibly serene experience like none other. Nothing ruined those experiences more than when someone with a drone showed up to drown out all the noises of nature.
- bacon_waffle 8y ago
  I live in the South of New Zealand, hearing the bird song is one of the big perks of being here. Drones, I don't really have much of an opinion on to be honest. There is certainly good and bad outdoors etiquette; if it were in vogue to play a trumpet outside in a beautiful wild place, I'd probably not be a fan of the person playing it, but I don't mind the instrument in the right context. There does seem to have been quite a backlash against drones here (see rules 11 and 12: https://www.airshare.co.nz/rules https://www.airshare.co.nz/rules), though I don't know how much of that is driven by the general resistance to new things here, or privacy concerns, or how much is the spoiling of public spaces as you mention. My guess is that it's roughly those issues, in that order. All that said, the sound of a bell on the neighbour's cat is offensive to me, for the fact that I'm hearing it and not the birds it's killed (we also have invasive rodents, which do harm bird life but some are also eaten by cats). It makes me wonder about shifting baseline syndrome too - what would it be like here if we could get rid of most of the the human-introduced predators? https://cacophony.org.nz/ https://cacophony.org.nz/
jstarfish 8y ago
> the drones are transforming how ordinary people are able to capture and tell amazing stories. I disagree. Drones are allowing ordinary people to take ordinary pictures, only from a much greater height.

smhost 8y ago

> I have literally changed my perspective, and I am obsessed with it. Shooting from a drone, with a straight-down vantage point, has allowed me to explore my coastal muse with a brand new eye Sounds very Jackson Pollock. > There are a lot of privacy concerns, which is fair. But I don't see that privacy concern in public areas any worse than mobile phones. This directly contradicts your earlier point about being able to see things you couldn't before.

freehunter 8y ago
I think the idea is that anything in public can be photographed at any time by any one. If you're out in public, someone could photograph you with a cell phone from the street, from a building, from a helicopter, etc. Drones don't change that equation in the slightest. What drone photography does change is how easy it is to photograph angles that were difficult before, not the fact that it's possible. Which is the same for mobile phones. Since the invention of the camera, it's always been possible to photograph anything anyone anywhere. Camera phones just made it easier, since now nearly everyone has a camera. But that doesn't mean it wasn't possible before, or that you have less privacy in public places. You've never had privacy in public places.
- isostatic 8y ago
  Of course they do. My yard has a 6' fence, no houses overlook it, it's therefore private. A drone changes that.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I guess you missed the part where everyone was repeatedly saying "public space".

josephjrobison 8y ago

The fear of 100 drones in the sky of every neighborhood, and neighbors shooting them out of their backyard if they cross the property line thankfully hasn’t come true yet. And we’re a few years into consumers buying pretty powerful toy drones like the Magic Pro. I have seen more no-drone signs up at National sparks such as Joshua Tree, but that’s fair enough in spots like that. Hopefully the positive trend of human drone harmony continues!

hoorayimhelping 8y ago

It gives a new perspective but it doesn't allow for very visually interesting photos. The shots are (by nature of drone photography) almost always composed exactly the same. The different landscapes in the article are beautiful, but there are basically two compositions in the article: the majority have a vertical composition looking straight down with a path or river going from top to bottom (sometimes it goes from left to right). There are a couple of shots that show a landscape from a non-vertical angle. >You can argue drone photography, is the most important camera innovation of the past 100 years. Really? I mean you could, but it seems silly. I'd say digital image sensors are by far a much more important innovation. Without those, you don't have drone photography, or you do, but it's so prohibitively expensive that it's not available to anyone who can do interesting things with it. Without digital image sensors you don't have camera phones, you don't have GoPros, you don't have dashcams, you don't have bodycams, you don't have drone cameras, you don't have cameras mounted on the sides of rockets, etc. You don't have the DSLR revolution that got high quality cameras in the hands of amateurs last decade.

jacobush 8y ago
Well, you had the Estes Super 8 rockets. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l65CvkeYowM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l65CvkeYowM
- jeremy7600 8y ago
  Thanks for the link, that was very well made. Always wanted an Estes AstroCam when I was growing up in the late 80's early 90s.
salimmadjd 8y ago
I'd say digital image sensors are by far a much more important innovation I thought about this statement before writing it, and I know what you mean. But the way I justify this view is that with film vs digital I was never able to take any different images. Sure, digital photography is at the heart of drones. But A digital camera didn't give me an entirely a new way to easily tell a story. Of course, I could rent a helicopter (almost impossible for some locations and prohibitively expensive) but to carry a small gadget and send it up to tell a story is something that has only become possible recently. Take something like this [0]. It's a former spy radio satellite the operated in current Latvia during the USSR days and now has been turned into a radio telescope. It would be impossible to tell a story about it's location in middle of trees, etc. unless I had a helicopter. Or how do you show there is a monument built on top of the hills in Buda side that overlooks the river on Budapest. You can not [1]. As I said, it gives you abilities to tell stories that you could not do with an analogue camera. [0] https://www.eyeem.com/p/121629319 https://www.eyeem.com/p/121629319 [1]https://www.eyeem.com/p/110013323 https://www.eyeem.com/p/110013323

ethbro 8y ago

The amazing thing is to think we've only had aerial photography since ~1860 (so 58 years). And people in the air at all since 1783. Before that, literally no one had seen the world from that vantage point. Baring a convenient mountain.

ISL 8y ago
2018-1860 = 158.
- ethbro 8y ago
  That's what I get for multitasking. Thanks for correcting.
emaginniss 8y ago
I'd love to hear your perspective on life as someone living in 1918.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Well, the Kaiser is out and the War is over! If it weren't for the flu in Spain (although I've heard it showed up in other places...) then it would be a good end to the year. Regardless, I thank God we'll never see such senseless bloodshed again.

veidr 8y ago

Since nobody else has said it in this thread: wow, some of your photos are fucking awesome! I especially loved the pensive aahhhdammit face composed of the moon on orange sky with three birds.

salimmadjd 8y ago
Thanks! Two interesting thing about that photo. 1 - It's near the arctic circle by the Lofoten area in Norway. In or near the arctic circles the sun and the moon (in winters) stay very low, so you get this very long period of low angles of the moon or sun. In San Francisco, you are rushing to capture 1-2 shots before the moon has moved a few degrees upwards. 2 - that moon image was at the opposite side (if I remember correctly) of the picture below it [0] which is a reminder to always look behind you, during dramatic colors. [0] https://www.eyeem.com/p/122317208 https://www.eyeem.com/p/122317208

puranjay 8y ago

Man, your work is beautiful!

blhack 8y ago

Right there with you. I recently got a DJI spark as kindof a toy, but was blown away at the incredible videos and photos I was getting with it. It made me a little sad to find out that some cities in my metro area have ordinances banning me from using them there. So for instance: I can't fly them at family gatherings to take videos of us.

moosehawk 8y ago

> Sadly, there are a lot of backlashes against it. I went to New Zealand last year for 3 weeks. It was the most beautiful place I've visited in my life. And not just visually beautiful, but audibly beautiful too. The ambience made for an incredibly serene experience like none other. Nothing ruined those experiences more than when someone with a drone showed up to drown out all the noises of nature.

bacon_waffle 8y ago
I live in the South of New Zealand, hearing the bird song is one of the big perks of being here. Drones, I don't really have much of an opinion on to be honest. There is certainly good and bad outdoors etiquette; if it were in vogue to play a trumpet outside in a beautiful wild place, I'd probably not be a fan of the person playing it, but I don't mind the instrument in the right context. There does seem to have been quite a backlash against drones here (see rules 11 and 12: https://www.airshare.co.nz/rules https://www.airshare.co.nz/rules), though I don't know how much of that is driven by the general resistance to new things here, or privacy concerns, or how much is the spoiling of public spaces as you mention. My guess is that it's roughly those issues, in that order. All that said, the sound of a bell on the neighbour's cat is offensive to me, for the fact that I'm hearing it and not the birds it's killed (we also have invasive rodents, which do harm bird life but some are also eaten by cats). It makes me wonder about shifting baseline syndrome too - what would it be like here if we could get rid of most of the the human-introduced predators? https://cacophony.org.nz/ https://cacophony.org.nz/

jstarfish 8y ago

> the drones are transforming how ordinary people are able to capture and tell amazing stories. I disagree. Drones are allowing ordinary people to take ordinary pictures, only from a much greater height.