Mountain Drone Photography
Lesson 20 from: The Photographic Style & Aesthetic WorkshopBenjamin Hardman
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Mountain Drone Photography
Lesson 20 from: The Photographic Style & Aesthetic WorkshopBenjamin Hardman
Lesson Info
20. Mountain Drone Photography
Lessons
M0: Orientation
1Series Hello & Introducing Benjamin Hardman
01:43 2Coffee with Alex - Benjamin's Story
22:38 3Benjamin's Workshop Introduction
01:39M1: Gear & Prep
4High-Resolution Setup
07:26 5Lightweight Gear Setup
05:33 6Backpack Breakdown
11:38Aerial Photography
05:51 8Gear & Clothing
07:26 9Research & Preparation
06:18M2: Shooting & Editing
10Seals of Glacier Lagoon
06:56 11Editing: Adobe Lightroom Basics
40:59 12Capturing Glacial Detail
08:23 13Editing: Macro Detail
15:17 14Exploring on Foot
09:47 15Editing: Image Stitching
17:18 16Photographing the Elusive Reindeer
07:21 17Editing: Subjects in Sunset Light
16:58 18Documenting Iceland's Jagged Peaks
06:21 19Editing: Atmospheric Mountains
14:56 20Mountain Drone Photography
10:50 21Editing: Aerial Abstraction
17:20M3: Finding Your Style, Curation, and Social Media
22Benjamin's Style
03:30 23What Inspires Benjamin
02:40 24Creating Your Own Voice
03:01 25Curation: Computer to Phone & UNUM
10:16 26Social Media Q&A with Alex
08:47M4: Running A Creative Business
27Benjamin's Story & Business Tips
05:23 28Presenting Professionally
01:39 29Printing Your Work
12:29 30Staying Inspired
01:02M5: Wrap Up
31Workshop Takeaways
06:03 32Workshop Summary with Alex
32:50Lesson Info
Mountain Drone Photography
(wind whistling) Yeah, we are now approaching one of my favorite places. This is the valley of Thórsmörk, pretty much off limits in winter unless you have a vehicle that can make it through the ice and the rivers. So definitely don't come here with your rental car. There's plenty of tours that can take you here but you'll see why it's so beautiful in a minute cuz we're gonna go as far as we can and try and not get stuck. That's the main mission and hopefully fly the drone somewhere. 'Cause it's not too windy. (melancholic piano music) (vehicle engine strains) (moody ambient music) (car door clicks) I've had this drone for a little while, few months now still getting used to it. It's just such a bigger setup than the other drones. So the fact you have this like whole, you know setup process, have to put even the legs into a different mode and attach the camera and stuff. It's not as easy and swift as the smaller ones but because I have the 50 millimeter lens it's just so interesting t...
o get, you know high-res shots combined with this really compressed 50 millimeter slash hundred millimeter focal length because it is a smaller sensor. So it zooms in as a crop factor. You can get this really interesting parallax between the foreground and background as the drone turns around some sort of object in the foreground. I should have done this before, which is always good for pre-planning because there could have been some crazy light event happening and I would be sitting here warming up batteries instead of capturing, so. Lucky, the light is just quite stable now but in the future I have to try to remember to do this ahead of time. First time I've been here to this specific valley I could never get here because I didn't have the right vehicle. Even in the summer. There's like pretty deep rivers across. Kind of everything we've done has been thanks to this massive Defender. As I've touched on in the packing module, I like to combine droning with hiking. (device beeps in high pitch) So that means getting myself as far as possible and then having the smaller drone and just sending it to the surrounding peaks, which usually are just really unique places that no one's ever really photographed before. But in cases like this we can't really go too far from the car. So I'm just going to try and get the drone where my mind visualizes the best possible photo which right now is up along this ridge line. We have some really interesting formations and I'm hoping that the drone can get up there and get the nice light from behind. Kind of isolate one of the rock structures in the foreground and maybe just create some kind of compelling image, but you never know until you're up there. So let's do this. I have a few things in my mind that I always look for and Iceland and some of the other Arctic countries I shoot are known for is these strange jagged formations in the mountains. So obviously having the drone with me, I can actually reach those and exactly what I was talking about up here with this ridge line and getting these peaks coming out, isolating them. Cause I'm always looking to try and isolate my subject and get some negative space around usually using the sky. And I reckon that up there, we have that. But, the light is pretty mixed. So it's a bit of a challenge. We just have to try it out, get this guy in the air. (drone powering up, propeller blades whizzing) (moody ambient music) I think we're gonna be up there around 15 minutes or so. It's my estimation. The weird thing about this lens is it's so hard to know where the drone is because you're so zoomed in. it's already looking pretty cooler. (drone control beeps) The option just to have the interchangeable lenses and be able to really punch in and get that parallax, especially in video. It just looks really cool. That's what drew me to getting this in the first place. And now it's just about exploring the aerial angles from a new perspective. (camera shutter clicking) I only own this one lens. I don't plan on changing. I plan on just forcing myself to get to know it and push the composition and the subject options to the furthest that I can. This was the reason I got this drone is to get like really close up and really harness the compression from the sky. I think it can be quite healthy. Like I used to shoot 135 millimeter almost exclusively and I'd force myself to just hike back and stitch things when I needed to. But yeah, pretty much always just using that lens to try and expand my creative thinking a little bit. So we had the drone in the sky locked onto this one interesting shape, rock spire, I guess you could call it. And I'm creating some vertical stitches by shooting from a low pan and then straight up maybe five photos to the center and then all the way up to the sky. And then these are really useful for social media because posting in vertical is the way to take up the most phone screen and generally looks pretty cool if you can frame it right. It can really vary how many photos go in stitch. With this lens in particular, I would probably need to take about five, but if you wanted to get wider then you would obviously pan the drone a little bit keep going up and down. And I'm doing that right now. I'll get a bit of footage, looks really cool. (wind rumbling) (moody ambient music) Pretty keen on the rock formations, just because they stand out from the landscape around them and you can really centralize them and create these kind of isolated images that I've become quite addicted to taking. Anything that allows me to really enhance the negative space. I'm usually focusing on that. So I like to obviously shoot landscape and vertical orientation in my shots but also because I have the option of shooting video right here in one click. I also like to capture video when I'm flying. It's worked out well in the past, I've actually been able to turn that into promotional videos for companies from, you know across the Arctic region and Iceland. And I mean, if you can spare the time to capture it's always worth having it on file. And it just looks generally cool. So the memory of like seeing these things, really nice to have. Expanding on my social media a few years ago I decided to try my best to make some vlogs about my experiences, cuz at least like in the beginning just to show my family what I was getting up to. 'Cuz everyone back in Australia was thinking like, what is this guy doing? They can only see these wild landscapes but no idea like where it is or you know how it is to live there. So I started this YouTube channel and it's been on and off over the years just sometimes I feel like it's really got in the way of performing my best at photography. So I've taken breaks, started again and just because it's not my main focus, I'm okay with that. Though, always with social media, consistency is key. So yeah, I mean having these drone videos are just super useful for that as well. And if you can grab a camera, video camera and just talk to it a little bit, then you have a little vlog right there, easy. I found this little opening in the glacier, and one thing that's really interesting about this particular glacier, it's sadly retreating beyond belief but it's in part to the fact that seven years ago there was some major volcanic eruption here. So I think it was quite doomed at that point but I've just found this, this hole that is I guess like some sort of meltwater channel flowing down into a canyon way up there. I'm trying to get some sort of composition where I can showcase the glacier kind of wrapping around this hole and then the leading line kind of off the canyon itself coming down. Because I'm above it's hard to get that perspective. So I might have to go down. (camera shutter clicking) (moody ambient music) So I turn the drone around and the river is looking really beautifully contrasted against the snow. Snow is very flat here and very kind of minimal consistency. (drone beeps, female voice states battery level is low) It's just, something I've gotta get before the drone decides to come back. I'm trying to set up a composition that has the river as a leading line kind of braiding kind of through the photo. A lot of people focus on the veins, but in this case I just wanna focus on the actual shape of the river as a whole. So, zooming in. (footsteps crunch through snow) It's important to me to know where I am and the things that I'm looking at because I think it brings you so much closer to the images that you're shooting. Like for example, where we are now there was a giant glacial flood and most of the formations that are up there happened seven years ago in that flood just as the, the chaos kind of unfolded. And the massive boulders that were getting sent down in the water were just pummeling the landscape and creating all these contours and kind of little peaks that we can see now. So without knowing that, you know it's just like any other mountain. So once you've done a little bit of research and you can kind of connect on that next level to what you're photographing, it just is more meaningful. And I think you can tell a better story in the end. (moody ambient music)
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Matt Grandbois
Very Informative & Awe Inspiring Both Benjamin and Alex have played huge roles in my photographic style development over the years and it is great to hear first hand exactly what inspires and drives Ben to keep pushing his creative boundaries. Personally, I love his minimalist approach and it was super insightful to watch him explain how he developed that style and how he actively produces photographs in a cohesive manner. 10/10 recommend this workshop to anyone looking for a very unique and profound perspective with the intent of expanding your creative horizons.
Alec Brown
First Workshop The first workshop I have ever purchased. I've always been hesitant to invest in a workshop, however this went above and beyond my expectations. Fluid in progression, great insight and a super relaxed learning curve full of information. I feel this has prepared me to take my own personal photographic journey to the next level. Executed to perfection. Nice work guys! 10/10 recommended.
Janelle Dransfield
Moving to Iceland now...? Loved this workshop! I really liked the way the modules are split up, and the way you watch Benjamin go out on location for a shot, then immediately sit down and watch his editing process for that specific shot. So much editing to learn too, since he doesn't use presets! The workbook is also super thorough, so printing it out allowed me to pay close attention and just add little notes here and there. The Iceland road guide is also SO helpful and in depth. Can't wait to use it. Also loved that Ben talked about printing your own work. Would be cool to maybe see something from Wildist in the future that goes even more into depth on that (calibrating your own printer, working with a print shop, dropship sites, etc.) Awesome course. Thanks, Hardman.