My New Mexico rural land photography work took me to south of Grants, New Mexico, near the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, which I unfortunately did not have time to visit, just drive by, and did not see any wolves either! This area is near El Morro National Monument also, which I only had time to stop at very briefly! Well, I am sorry to mention all these cool places, but only show you rural New Mexico land! And, due to circumstances, I had to fly in the early afternoon light, which is not ideal. I used my darkest PolarPro ND16 filter to still try and achieve the ideal shutter speed to frame rate ratio of 2:1 for my Mavic Pro drone recording 4K video at 24fps. I used my new Garuda LUTs from Looks and Luts to color grade the video in Final Cut Pro X to get the most out of the scenery.
This 4K drone video made in New Mexico features a remote area of desert and mountain in Valencia County, about one hour south of Albuquerque. I drove my Jeep Renegade Trailhawk down 7 miles of unmaintained dirt road to reach this location for a rural land client. While waiting for the sun to go down to make the last of the photos I needed to, I flew my DJI Mavic Pro drone over the desert and toward the mountains. The wind was strong, giving high wind warnings on the drone's remote control, so I dared not go higher nor closer to the mountains.
I visited Deer Canyon Preserve near Mountainair, New Mexico two times in four days on rural land photography assignments. This video is a compilation of flying my DJI Mavic Prodrone both evenings. This is a private, gated community that has its own hiking and horse trails.
My brief time at Leo Carrillo State Park in Malibu, California flying my DJI Mavic Pro drone was incredibly fruitful. If I lived in Malibu I could produce nearly infinite drone photos of that stunning stretch of California coastline. Of particular interest to me was that small cove of rocks, which I have remarked before looks like a secret cache of dinosaur eggs!
In full disclosure this is my Jeep Renegade TrailhawkI just got three weeks ago that is featured in this 4K drone video made in the Rio Rancho, New Mexico area on remote fire roads in the Southern Blvd area. Jessica was in the passenger seat and the pilot for this video, though I used the intelligent flight mode Active Tracking in the DJI Go 4 app, so all she had to do was to make sure the Mavic Pro kept the Jeep in frame. It was a lot of fun being out in the desert having an adventure and being able to make a unique home movie of sorts of this exploring!
I only got to spend a very brief time in Malibu, California. Fortunately, it was spent at the stunning Leo Carrillo State Park, which I just happened to pick out on a map to visit! You have seen my bird's eye view drone photos of this park, now you can see the view from my DJI Mavic Pro drone!
It took far too long to visit Petroglyphs in Albuquerque New Mexico. Many times on my way to photographing rural land properties in Rio Rancho had I past it. Finally, a brief visit was possible just to Black Volcano. A short 4K drone video of Black Volcano is featured above.
