If you liked the black & white views of El Morro National Monument I showed you earlier this week, well, this land featured here is for sale and about a 15 minute drive to the monument. Plus, you get these sunset views and on special evenings like this one, a purple twilight sky too! Contact Hemingway Land to make this your home, or second home! I was having to will the clouds away all afternoon, and finally just before sunset a sliver of sky opened up just above the horizon allowing the sun to blaze through for me to get these sunset HDR photos. And to fly my Mavic Pro drone one more time producing one of the best into the sun shots I have made to date.
Back out on assignment for Hemingway Land Company in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico near a small town called Tierra Amarilla, I was treated to the beginning of some fall foliage and distant snow capped mountain views. Rio Arriba County is my favorite in all of New Mexico for its majestic beauty ranging from mesas to lakes to mountains to forests. It was peaceful out here and the sweeping landscape was not a bad office for one late afternoon’s work! The only thing was the mud! See the photo at the bottom for what the Jeep Renegade Trailhawk looked like after just a brief drive in down the dirt/mud road!
Me and Jessica and the dogs had some free time on a rural land shoot weekend in Navajo Dam, New Mexico, and saw that Durango, Colorado was not that far away. We took the Jeep Renegade Trailhawk up a scenic highway, and kept on going right through Durango finding first a natural hot spring, and then later a crowd gathered around this small bridge. Not until you get up on the bridge do you have any idea the amazing views of the Animas River from it, and you really get a better look at the beauty of this area from the drone’s eye view! The crowd there, however, were mostly to watch people jump off the cliff bank 30+ feet into the Animas River below! It was tricky to time out and capture with the drone, but in the video you can see two people making the plunge!
Have you ever sat and stared in bemused amazement at the water feature in Civic Plaza in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico? It was designed by Aqua Design International. They contacted me about making a creative drone video of the water feature really showing off the range of fountains and colors they display at dusk. This was my first time to fly my DJI Mavic Pro drone in such low light. After a brief test flight I was very glad to find out it could record video in these conditions and that the final, edited 4K drone video made Aqua Design so happy. The music I selected I think really compliments the visuals. Press play, and take a 3 minute whimsical break!
In a way I feel like the area east of the Sandia Mountains is kind of like the dark side of the moon -- it is a place not many ever see, yet it is right there. Cedar Crest, New Mexico is on the dark side of the moon, or rather east of the Sandia Mountains and has that feeling of being quite removed from the hustle and bustle of Albuquerque, but it is really close by. It's just tucked behind the mountains for safe keeping! This rural land property is available via Hemingway Land Company.
When I first got my DJI Mavic Pro drone in November 2017, the first place I really flew it was in Taos, New Mexico. Driving there I had no idea there was a mini-Grand Canyon just on the edge of the town, so to my great surprise was the Rio Grande Gorge revealed to me! I thought the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge would be a great place to fly the drone, but having such little flying experience and with it being so windy when I visited the bridge, the drone stayed in its case that time. Fast forward to the present, with dozens of flights of experience, having already flown under the Bixby Bridge, with the weather at near ideal conditions I did not hesitate to fly over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge this time!
This was my first drone video assignment for DroneHive which took me up to Waterflow, New Mexico, which is just west of Farmington. Things only got finalized less than 24 hours before I was supposed to fly, which was at 6:30am in the morning! From Monday afternoon I had to quickly find a hotel, get my gear packed up, then drive the 3.5 hours to Farmington, get to sleep asap, then before I knew it I was awake at 5:15am to drive to the construction site! I also did not really know what kind of flying I would be doing, or if I would be even flying my own drone! I am realizing just like being a professional photographer, being a certified drone pilot means having maximum flexibility with the need to produce results with very little, if any, prep time!
