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{What is aerial photography?}

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Refers to taking images of earth’s surface from birds-eye view

Can be taken through the use of helicopters, airplanes, hot air balloons, drones or skydivers

Aerial photography is a recent development, as there was limited technology in past

At the moment, there is a small number of aerial photographers due to:

Cost (decent drones range from $600-$2000), regulations (refers to laws on how high to fly), inconvenience (unassemble into large carrying case), and it is hard to do. 

However all of these variables will be reduced as technology gets better. 

In the past, no drones, people had to find other ways to photograph the earth. 

1865

No helicopters for another 67 years. 

Airplanes would be invented by wright brothers in another 40 years

The first camera commercially available started being sold in 1888 by George Eastman

This was the Kodak camera

Back in 1865, Wilhelm Neubronner was experimenting with the concept of photography 20 years before the Kodak.

His son, Julius, found one of these cameras and instantly gained interest. 

Julius would eventually grow up to creating his own variations on cameras, most notably the pigeon camera. 

Julius Neubronner was a man who trained pigeons to send medical prescriptions to people in the neighboring town from his home. 

On one occasion, one of his pigeons did not return from a flight until four weeks later, which gave him the idea to record their flight. 

He created a patent to attach a camera around the pigeon’s body, and created a timer that would take images at set intervals

He would predetermine the required camera settings. 

Here is an example of one of his images

When he took these images, he had no control over the composition

Every flight was a hit or miss as to whether the images would be blurry or pointing at something

This image is probably one of the better ones, featuring techniques such as 

Rule of thirds for the subject, the castle being in the bottom left intersection of the grid,

high contrast between the subject and background, and leading the eye to the center from the feathers of the bird. 

At the time, photos like this were rare, and Julius wanted a means of creating these images more efficiently, so he built a portable darkroom that was pulled by a horse. 

Interestingly, he found a way to take images of certain landmarks on purpose. 

He would take the pigeons average speed of 100km/h and the distance of the starting point to the object to calculate at what time the pigeon will come across the place. 

This worked because his pigeons always followed a linear path back towards his house. 

Here is the location of the previous photograph

It was taken just outside of Kronberg of Schlosshotel

The google earth view shows the distance from his town to the location where he would send the pigeons

Here is also a recreation of the image on google earth to show the perspective in colour and the development around the area. 

In this picture, and the original, the town is behind where the camera is pointing.

Once he saw that these images could be taken with more control by himself, he created a patent for the design. 

Besides this, he had a few ways of making money from this discovery, 

For example, he would use the training of the pigeons at circus shows and recorded them at the same time. 

He also printed his photos for stamps, which was by far financially the most successful

It’s difficult to find an estimate of how much they could have earnt in total

Essentially, everything that Julius did at the time was unique to the genre as there was nothing else to compare it to. 

Hot air balloon images had not gained the same amount of traction despite the earlier start

He was a pioneer in aerial photography, not necessarily due to the compositional area, but rather the popularisation. 

Karolis Janulis 

Is a much more recent aerial photographer, utilizing drones primarily. 

He was born in Kalipéda, and now lives in Lithuania. 

Lithuania is often known for its medieval castles, beaches and forests.

Both are common subjects of karolis’s images.

There is a lot more control in the way he takes images in comparison to Julius

Most of his images are taken top-down, which flattens scenery 

His most notable techniques include

Creating patterns from the objects on the ground

Photographing people’s shadows to bring out the shape of a person whilst being directly above them (from his project titled ‘living with shadows’)

Or viewing objects that could not be noticed from a lower angle. 

In an interview with Karolis, he said that:

“I have always loved looking at perspectives from above; it allows us to see so many things that would otherwise be unnoticed. Taking photographs from above grants us the possibility to see the same view of the daily world, as others.” 

In specific, the images the Karolis takes of people’s shadows are unique to the genre of aerial photography

The majority of aerial photography is picturing cities on a large scale. 

However, his photos sometimes resemble oddinary objects or patterns 

For example this image of a field appears like a spoon

This could not be seen from the lower angle on the ground, which is what he is conveying in the previous quote.

Here is another example of his photos: 

This image has a repeating pattern and no clear subject. 

Having no subject in an image urges the viewer to look around the image, rather than focus on a particular point. 

However, the eye is drawn to the blue umbrellas due to the contrast in tone. 

In terms of settings: 

Generally, when taking drone photos, a faster shutter speed is needed to avoid blur created by the sway of the drone due to wind. 

This means that most drone images can only capture motion as still images. 

Also, with flat images like this one, the aperture has little effect if the elements in the image are not heightened.

Karolis does not do photography full time despite his success. 

When he travels for work, he brings his camera in the case.

He says that he does not wish to pursue it as a career either, having already worked in his business for 10 years. 

Despite this his images have been featured on CNN, BBC, Dailymail, ABC, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Wired, F11 and others. 

These do not bring him any income, but they help to increase the popularity and recognition of his work

The way that he does make money from this is his online shop. 

He sells 25 different canvases, each $90.

But it is not likely that he actually makes much money from these, with only 1 follower and 58 total visitors. 

Also this shop is fairly recent, opening last year despite his photography beginning in 2014-15

It is a likely assumption that no more than 3 people have bought his prints. 

So he has probably made around $90-$270 from his photography overall from known sources

In comparison, looking at a successful aerial photographer, they would probably earn around $30 - $200 thousand a year if taking it up as a full time job. 

Comparing the 2 photographers

The major difference is the level of control and accessibility over the two photographers

Julius was more the pioneer of the technology, whereas someone like Karolis mastered utilizing the already made equipment. 

Here is an example of two of their images that share some similarities. 

Both images are top-down street views of an intersection

Karolis’ image (right) was taken with a camera that is able to face directly down to the ground

And Julis’s image was not able to face down as the camera was attached to the front of the pigeon. 

The effect that a straight downward image has is that it appears more intentional, and the other image looks like it was taken in a fast motion

Neither images do not have a subject, which is a common theme for both photographers most of the time. 

As said before it helps to let viewers look across the image. 

Some other main differences that can be seen include:

In the left image, there is a high amount of contrast between the road and the buildings on either side of the image. 

The image feels more cramped as it urges you to look only left or right because the top and bottom is cropped due to the wide aspect ratio. 

It also looks as if Julius had used the technique of dodge and burn to darken the top shadows for this purpose. 

On the other hand, Karolis’ image is much more revealing of what is around the intersection in all directions

His images are never heavily edited, and look as natural as possible 

This is because when he creates images, his intention is to show people what they usually can see but at a different angle 

When comparing the two photographers, the historical relevance is important. 

Different time period means a different standard for photography

For example, people in the early 1900’s found these images unordinary and never before seen

Whereas now when someone sees a regular drone image it is relatively normal and it entirely depends on the location for as to if the image is good or not. 

Obviously if someone had taken an image like this one in 2020, it would be considered as a bad photo.