A couple of weeks ago, I was standing in the freezing rain and howling winds of a nature reserve, waiting to capture the moment a friend of mine decided to pop the marriage question to his then-girlfriend. Fortunately, she said yes, which meant that an engagement party was imminent - taking place this past weekend.

Having already fulfilled my photography quota for this situation, I was expecting to just be able to arrive, eat plenty of food, mingle, and then drive over 45km back home - sans camera. Everyone these days owns a cellphone capable enough of getting useable photos for social media anyway.

However, as the day of the event drew closer, it became clear I wasn’t getting off photo duty that easily. Instead of being asked to bring my regular Canon 6D, a request was put forward to bring my DJI Mavic Pro drone instead. The engagement party was being held at a house that apparently had a pretty stunning view of the Inanda Valley below - a rural area that (in my opinion) somewhat resembles the vast canyon landscapes outside of Los Angeles.

And he wasn’t kidding. This is a cellphone photo from the garden.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, Mother Nature was also on my side this time. Instead of the nuclear winter conditions from the proposal shoot, the weather was now described as “pleasant” by Accuweather - no wind, mild temperatures, with decent visibility.

With the house being perched on the edge of a cliff, all it took for me to technically be a couple of hundred metres up was to fly out a bit over the valley. Sadly, I wasn’t feel very confident in the DJI technology that day, as the transmission was getting very laggy on my quick scouting flight - even though I was very close to the drone with great clear visibility. Therefore, I didn’t push the boundaries of distance that much… perhaps a software update is needed?

Looking back towards the house. Can you spot me standing on the right hand side?

Pointing the drone in a north-easterly direction, the scale of the cliffs is easily visible.

It’s Go Time

Since I only had one battery, I decided to reserve the main flight for the golden hour, which started at an estimated 4:45pm local time. With a mere 20 minutes of battery life remaining, I was still happy at the results I managed to get. The two sunset photos you see in this article were taken from about 150m up (relative to where I took off from), using the auto photo settings, and shooting in .RAW.

Since we’re nearing the end now, I can hear you asking: why aren’t there more sunset photos? Well…

• The majority of my flight was for video purposes. That footage will be used in my drone compilation that I can hopefully get out someday.
• The sunset photos all looked rather similar. I had to do some serious processing in Lightroom to make these ones stand out. Seen one, seen them all.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this brief look at our local rural landscape from another perspective. I often feel that my drone never gets used to its full potential - little outings like this one give me that extra “kick” of encouragement to take it out more often. Lets hope that rings true for the rest of 2018.

Equipment Setup

Camera	DJI Mavic Pro
Lens	Standard Mavic Pro Lens
Processing	Lightroom CC
Location	Waterfall, South Africa

DISCLAIMER: All photos and writing are my own original work.