Since my last post and my Flight test I have been trying to get out with the Phantom to capture some images, I have still been plagued with the weather but I did get a few images, which have rather challenged my ideas.
At first, I thought I just needed to find some interesting places to take traditional landscape images and shoot them with the phantom. I thought this would demonstrate that feeling of vertigo I was looking for. I somewhat naively thought that just because they were taken from a high vantage point they would take the breath away, This proved not to be the case. If anything it made the beautiful images look more beautiful and more traditional in terms of landscapes. Here are some examples:
As can be seen they are quite lovely images, however, I don’t think they show the sublime at all, most of them are images that have not been seen before because without a drone the camera cannot get into that position. These images are unique and different but not at all sublime as described previously.
I did, however, take one image during this period that made me stop and think:
This was one of the first images taken with the first drone, I think on the first flight, it was taken from about a 100feet or so with the camera pointing directly down, and it made me feel odd, I felt that little bit of vertigo I have been discussing, I wondered if the secret was the angle of the camera as this makes the viewer feel like they are above the image falling in rather than standing on a high platform looking out like all the others.
This image has an interesting quality there are lots of things going on. There is a kind of beauty that is sharpened by the feeling of fear or unease that draws us into the picture.