Bianca, snow

Bianca is an Australian professional dancer who came to the Netherlands to study choreography. After living here for four years now she still enjoys being here, but she also knows the somewhat awkward sides of our little country. In the Netherlands, everything is regulated, even the nature.

In Australian has its summer, here it is winter. Perhaps this day was the last day with snow and I wanted to explore another nature area, an area known for its many birds. It was cold, there had been snow recently, the area was away from cities. All reason for being desolated. However, it was not. The area, and the coffee joint we found nearby, was relative packed with a special kind of humans: old people in camouflage outfit, with a determined look on their faces, with large and expensive gear. Camera's with huge lenses and large camouflaged binoculairs. Birdwatchers.

We found an area which was open, with some small trees around, a small lake on the background. The ground was covered by some fresh light snow. The area was interesting for a droneshoot, because the trees were not scattered randomly over the area. When studying google maps, I found that the trees seemed to be grouped in small random forms, but each individual tree was positioned in a grid. From the ground it looked random, the systematic layout was only visible from the sky.

Bianca proved to be brave and did not hesitate to model in the snow. The shoot was fruitful. I made a short movie, some photos of different poses and a pano-shoot. After that, I landed the drone and packed it to head off to the next location. Bianca had stuffed her boots with small heat packs and was successfully getting warm.

However, during this shoot I had felt that we were alone and yet not. In the area were shelters, not for animals but for birdwatchers. And birdwatchers don't like drones. It was an awkward feeling. So we kept the shoot in the nature area short and headed for completely different kind of location. Alas, at this location the drone did not successfully calibrate. I guess the drone needs some room to calibrate well. So we called it a day.

At home I saw that we had footage of a limited number of poses, but the material was good.

Lessons learned: do not drone near people with large binoculars (bird-watchers), do not drone near drone-haters (bird-watchers), conclusion: do not drone in areas with many birds.

To do: study calibration issues in areas with little nature.

Ideas for future shoots: explore more different kinds of areas, shoot with multiple models