While we were in Langkawi, each of us had our own pool for our rooms. How cool is that? We would always have arguments… like he said, why don’t you come to my pool. And I was like no way man. I’m not getting in your filthy pool. Get your skinny ass over to my pool and get it all dirty with your dirty dirty body and then Tane was like, okay.
I think this looks a little bit like a bra for two very different breast sizes. I don’t know why I see that… probably a bit of Rorschach. It actually wasn’t too easy to get to this spot to take the photo because it was pretty much at the limit of the quadcopter. I kept losing contact with the quad and it would start to fly home automatically. Frustratingly, I had to keep taking control and forcing it to go as far as possible.
Krabi is right on the coast of Thailand and it’s a fun day to take out a boat and explore all the little islands. This is a cool secret bay that you can’t see when you’re zooming by this island so I decided to get the quad up in the air to get a new perspective.
I actually forgot the name of this resort, but it had sort of a funny setup. There were three or four resorts right next door to one another and they all had the exact beach and bay layout. I would go on little jogs along the path the connected all the resorts and I would always get confused as to which resort was actually mine.
What a pool, eh? You’re only seeing it, but they told me it was the largest pool on this side of the planet. I didn’t have any competing pools to argue about this fact with, but I did make a lot of use of the pool. I think about 90% of the photos I got here that I love the most were with the quadcopter. Man, that’s by far my favorite toy of the decade!
One day, we jumped out on a boat to go through the archipelago to visit some floating markets. These places are totally unique and they sell a wide variety of things, only half of which I can identify. Some of the veggies and fruits and stuff look a little sketchy, so they are definitely the sorts of things you need to prep and cook well when you get home.
I was surprised to see all the semi-religious buildings and structures in Sanya. You don’t see a lot of this sort of stuff in mainland China, but because Sanya is on an island of their own, they seem to have a bit more of a different history and architecture. It was a welcome relief, because after you’ve seen about 10 Chinese temples of traditional design, you’ve seen them all.
One of the many unexpected benefits of drone photography is to create a sense of 3D depth by catching shadows in new ways. If you have some of this very clear water, then you can often see shadows that you can’t normally see from the shore. I also like how you can get up a little higher and get the kayak in the middle of a minimalist background, rather than having it be mixed up with the horizon.
If you’re a Passport Member then today you get to see the creation of this fun panorama from Shanghai. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise!
This is made out of 9 different photos that I stitched together in Photoshop. I was trying to get an “angle” on Shanghai that no one has ever seen before, so I flew it out over the Bund to get this angle.
I’m pretty sure flying a drone in China is illegal. I mostly think this because I was arrested a few years earlier for doing it. But I figured, hey, if I can talk myself out of Chinese prison once, I can do it twice, right? This is how I think… anyway, when I went to launch this down by the coast, I saw about three other Chinese dudes launching their own quadcopters. This only emboldened me!
I am just as fascinated by UFOs as Kevin Rose is! This is a fun podcast episode where he talks to Navy Fighter Pilot Ryan Graves. Enjoy!
One day on the beach in Sanya, I took the drone out over some ships that were anchored about a mile off shore. It was about the limit for my drone, but it was really cool to explore these abandoned ships. I could have done it all day! Here’s one of the many shots my fun little drone friend brought back to me.
