It has been forever since I contributed anything to this community! For a while I had been decreasing the photography that I had been doing day-to-day and focusing more on the aerial videography side of things in attempt to build a larger video portfolio. Due to this the general photography I had been doing has decreased quite significantly, and it has been something that I have missed over the past few weeks. One of my main focuses with the videography however has been areas of industry, ranging from infrastructure to areas of development. It has been quite fun to capture these odd locations in such a manner, where they're usually something that I wouldn't have any interest in because why would someone choose something like this over anything else more aesthetically pleasing? That is unless you're like me and looking more to the commercial side of things. I've had fun looking at these otherwise unappealing environments but addressing them with a more creative pursuit, seeing how I could go about filming and capturing them that tells more of a story and increases that possibility of generating sells as a result. I think it also serves as a general creativity test to be able to look at such harsh locations and look for the beauty within, to become more of a storyteller rather than just capturing them up-front without trying to say something more.
I of course shot these with the drone, on different dates and in different locations, though returning to some to get different perspectives. The weather has been a bit harder lately for using the drone due to either rain or incredibly strong winds which make it impossible for my DJI Mini 2 to roam around. As well as some previously mentioned problems with the connection side that is related to my dated phone that the RC connects to. One thing about construction sites tends to be the scale of things though, the ways in which you can fly around them and capture them from different angles. And the way that the light interacts with them based on the time of day or weather. Over autumn and winter there have mostly been overcast days which offer more diffused lighting scenarios that acts as one big soft box in a way. It makes something cold like stone look quite soft, which sharp shadows as the light impacts the building's edges and corners. This interaction with light has made me a bit more fond of architecture in the process, and that's something I definitely want to continue photographing even with the regular camera from now on, especially interiors and with a wider angle through wider focal lengths. I always had somewhat of an interest in capturing such things, but it's certainly amplified as of late with how much variety in architecture that I'm now surrounded by in these former Soviet republics.
I do want to keep photographing these locations though, there's something about getting an aerial view of something that's considered a large project that makes them significantly more fun to see from that perspective. It's like getting a private viewpoint of things and 'getting the bigger picture' in a way. And the ability to navigate around them and capture them in different ways is a lot of fun, though of course there's a degree of secrecy that must be held while doing so, after all this isn't exactly approved from anyone. And I would be lying if I said that there wasn't a degree of danger I'd be placing upon others had I not been careful with where the drone was. With this, I keep it higher up than it needs to be, clearing far from the cranes that pick up and carry material around the site to people from various levels. I'd never fly the drone too close to interrupt anything, and that's the perk of having one of DJI's Mini lineup drones: they're so quiet that nobody really notices them from a certain height. And that lack of weight means getting enough altitude keeps it hidden from view and not much of a threat to anything it happens to be above. It's that level of exploration that comes with the drone that I love, and construction sites in a way are like exploring a hidden part of the city. Places we couldn't otherwise go to or see. I'm too curious for my own good!
I do feel like my Mini 2 is on the tail end of its life though. I can feel that it's getting old and my expectations from a drone have increased. I do want something that could perform a bit better and allow better and safer explorations of such environments without the messing around. Where I know I can just throw it up into the air, capture what I want and run off real quick before bothering anyone in the general area. But I am stuck between buying a new camera for the interior side of things, or sticking with the struggle for a bit longer and buying something that helps me more with the exterior side of the world. Either way, it's good to have something to post here again. I have missed writing about my photography explorations and the thoughts that come with them.
