Oasis Hunting

One of the things I love about drone photography is how its view is a completely different perspective from what we normally see. When you look down on a scene from above it brings out things you wouldn't notice -- it's an entirely different plane. When Willie and I first started photographing the salt ponds with our drones we flew high and looked out far. Next we started pointing the camera straight down, removing the sky and looking for interesting shapes. Then we started to look for different colors that we hadn't seen before. Finally we started flying low, giving yet again a different perspective. I loved this particular spot because of the shape of the salt here. It just zigged and zagged like tentacles. And I loved the dichotomy between the vegetation and the drying salt flat. I waited for a cloudless night so I could capture the setting sun glowing off the edges of the stream. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/4.5, 1/120 sec, ISO 100

Oasis Hunting

One of the things I love about drone photography is how its view is a completely different perspective from what we normally see. When you look down on a scene from above it brings out things you wouldn't notice -- it's an entirely different plane. When Willie and I first started photographing the salt ponds with our drones we flew high and looked out far. Next we started pointing the camera straight down, removing the sky and looking for interesting shapes. Then we started to look for different colors that we hadn't seen before. Finally we started flying low, giving yet again a different perspective. I loved this particular spot because of the shape of the salt here. It just zigged and zagged like tentacles. And I loved the dichotomy between the vegetation and the drying salt flat. I waited for a cloudless night so I could capture the setting sun glowing off the edges of the stream. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/4.5, 1/120 sec, ISO 100

White Salt Road

It's funny how you can spend a few hours exploring a place, and just as you're ready to pack up and leave you spot something you want to photograph. That's how photography works -- you can get so fixated on a particular scene that you don't see what else is out there. Or a scene has so many interesting spots that you just can't find them all. Willie and I both found this right as we were winding down and bringing our drones back. We had launched from nearby and usually we send the drones out far, then come back closer as the battery drains -- so it's not that much of a surprise that we found this late. By the time we found it, though, the light had disappeared and the scene was left fairly flat. I loved how the salt streams here created 2 separate paths in the landscape. I keep thinking to myself "oh, this looks like the yellow-brick road from Wizard of Oz, except it's white! And salt!" The vegetation, especially the little red plants, added a nice little bit of color to the scene as well. I used a cloudless sunset to capture some of the glow on the edges of the drying stream. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/5.6, 1/30 sec, ISO 320

Fork in the Pond

After flying at this particular salt pond for a few evenings I started to looking for some scenes that had contrasting colors. This particular area had some beautiful red plants mixed in with the vegetation above it and I knew that if I waited for a cloudless sunset I could capture some of the sun glowing off the edges of the salt streams. One thing that I love about this particular part of the pond is how the drying salt stream creates a fork-in-the-road. It just always captured my eye and brought it through the photo and I love how the red plants dot the edge of the stream, further adding to its shape. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/4.5, 1/80 sec, ISO 100

Edward Silver Fingers

I do most of my photography with Willie. His wife jokes that I'm his second significant other -- we've spent so much time together, in some amazing places, and we know each other quite well as a result of it. That also means I get to see some of the compositions that he sees that I hadn't seen. This is one of those examples. I had flown the drone around this particular stretch of the salt pond a number of times but I always photographed it from a different angle. Willie, though, saw this scene the first time and came back a few times to keep trying to refine the photo. I just couldn't see it. Finally, on my last visit I was able to capture a similar scene to his. This one is entirely copied from him - so he gets all the credit for seeing this! I loved how the salt river creates these fingers that extend out like Edward Scissor Hands DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/4.5, 1/50 sec, ISO 100

Worm Hunting

I love using photography as a tool to observe how the earth changes over time. These salt ponds are man-made ... a series of levees controls whether the ponds are filled with water or empty. When empty, a company harvests the salt to sell for sea-salt. As the water level drops, the salinity levels increase and different kinds of algae can survive. When we first started photographing this particular salt pond this stretch of the river was more of a clear or dark brown color. The yellow glow of the river existed in other parts of the pond but not here. However, when I returned a few weeks later, this part of the pond was now glowing yellow while the original spots had faded. I loved this little stretch of the pond because the 2 rivers come together, almost as if worms are kissing. I imagined the drone as a bird looking down, hunting for these worms so it can have its dinner. Lastly, I loved in the top of the photo how the setting sun caught a little bit of light on the hexagonal salt creations. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/4.5, 1/50 sec, ISO 100

Brain Erasor

Flying the drone above a landscape and pointing the camera down affords the ability to take some fairly abstract photographs. The scenes look different when there's no frame of reference, no skyline, no buildings, no sun. Instead we just see shapes and lines and the textures of mother earth. I loved pointing the camera straight down right at sunset to capture one of the salt rivers. The setting sun cast a warm glow on the ground, which was contrasted by the stark-white salt river. The low angle of the sun also cast a beautiful orange glow on the edge of the river, creating even more of a mystical feel. I imagine that the salt pond is a brain, and someone took an eraser and just erased this portion! DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 100

Smokestack

Willie and I have been photographing these particular salt ponds for over a month now and I love some of the abstract scenes that we've been able to capture. One spot I kept seeing but couldn't get a photo I liked was this edge of the river where th circular shapes seemed interesting but also made us struggle to find something we thought looked pleasing. On my last flight at the pond I came flew the drone low and tried to capture the circular patterns in a way that almost looked like smokestacks -- with the smoke coming out of the stacks in little buffs. The ground caught the setting sun and cast a glow, as if there was a fire above the stacks. DJI Mavic Pro 2 w/Hasselblad L1D-20c: 10.26mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, ISO 100