In-between (2 images)

https://w3w.co/fragile.lately.ordering

///fragile.lately.ordering

43.744462, -76.126399

Between the beauty of the Fall and Winter seasons in Upstate, New York, there is a time of sparseness. The leaves have fallen and have been blown into dense piles against unmovable objects. The sun remains low in the sky and the temperatures are equally shallow. Summer colors have all faded down to variations of brown and grey. Wind becomes common and night begins far too soon.

It is also a time between the relaxed state of Summer and the effort-laden experience of Winter. Gradually every trip outdoors requires increasingly more clothes and coats, and extra time to pull frost off the car windows and bring its interior temperature into a comfortable range. The motorcycles have become nothing more than large objects to walk around and climb over inside the garage.

It also is a time of transitioning the way I capture photographs. Finding vantage points behind things that block the wind or using the relative comfort of the car become more common experiences. Longer lenses and working the gear with gloves are clear signs of this annual period of change.

Thoughts about composition start shifting away from being able to capture images from any location down to simply the things that can be observed from the continually decreasing quantity of vantage points. And as the snowbanks increase, pulling to the side of the road to capture a moment goes from being something common to being completely impossible and quite dangerous.

Save The Bees & Punch More Fascists (3 images)

https://w3w.co/regard.splendid.couples

///regard.splendid.couples

43.23829, -77.53347

Opposites Attract

The Rouses Point Bridge, also known as the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge, connecting Rouses Point, NY and Alburg, VT, has always fascinated me. Often traveling East to West at the end of a long day experiencing points of interest in Vermont, I find myself in the small parking area attached to the bridge around sunset. For more than a decade, that spot has been the source of all my previously posted images of this unique bridge as it offers great views of the bridge-sunset combination, as well as the bridge’s curved construction. Links to these images appear below.

Finding other interesting spots where the bridge can be photographed is complicated. There aren’t many good vantage points unless a boat is involved.

Enter the drone.

A small road on the New York State side of the bridge leading to the edge of the water is the location of the original bridge. It made an excellent launching spot for the drone. From this location, at 258.6 feet of altitude, I was able to capture this image (and many others), with a brand new perspective.

You can read more about this interesting bridge on Wikipedia.

Other images of this bridge:

Launch site of the drone is here:

https://w3w.co/drastically.activism.requested

///drastically.activism.requested

44.999636, -73.3539

The Kingdom Of Salmonidae (3 images)

Click images for full panorama display…

https://w3w.co/growled.elated.interviewer

///growled.elated.interviewer

43.570248, -76.187147

Life Passages (3 images, video)

The learning-curve for creating drone videos is much bigger than I thought it would be! And learning to fly while capturing photos and videos has plenty of challenges!

The best news is that advancements in drone technology have helped that process profoundly as compared to my early attempts made many years ago. Preset flight routes and maneuvers are now executed with a few taps on the controller - although that doesn’t always guarantee you won’t fly into a tree or some other obstacle. But presets aren’t the full story as it is still necessary to know how to control the device and do that with a level of smoothness. You can see my failings in that regard in the video above! Practice, practice, and more practice will be the only cure to those issues.

Capturing photographs hasn’t been too difficult. I know my way around using all of the manual settings on my cameras, so doing the same work via a remote controller while your camera hovers hundreds of feet in the air hasn’t been much of an issue. And allowing the drone to coordinate the recording of multiple shots that subsequently blend into an assortment of panoramic outcomes has been exceptional.

But applying photography knowledge to video recording and production is only a small portion of the full process. The fundamental principles of photography are certainly the same, but instead of getting everything set for a single shot, now you have to accommodate for thousands of shots per minute! As you can see in my video, with the camera constantly in motion, so too are the while balance, exposure, and focus! And when the drone finally returns to its home location and the captured content makes it to the computer, adjusting all those variables presents a completely new learning curve. This video was somewhat saved by a LUT, but the video is a very long way away from what I would hope it to be.

Again, practice, practice, and even more practice tossed together with help from the Internet (mostly via instructional videos from other creators) will continue to be the best way forward.

So, take it for what it is: Just a whole bunch of experiments tossed together while learning, with no intention of the outcome being anything more than a little bit interesting!

Onward and upward!

https://w3w.co/fewest.dreamy.twisted

///fewest.dreamy.twisted

43.938349, -75.909086

Together (2 images)

https://w3w.co/perfection.youth.employers

///perfection.youth.employers

43.745189, -76.126585