PHOTOGRAPHY
My First Real Camera is a Drone
Exploring the skies of my hometown
A couple of months ago, I was at a house party when my friend let me try his drone. Though drones were something I’d been aware of for a while, the ability to guide this toy of his through the skies of Hatboro was a watershed moment for me. It felt like something straight out of the future.
With the control sticks in my hand, I could feel the weight of this $1000 toy hovering gracefully through the sky. But more than the weight of this near-weightless hovercraft, I felt a primal anxiety settling in the pit of my stomach. I felt the disappointment and anger my friend would feel when I’d sheepishly and inevitably inform him, “I crashed your drone.”
But he trusted me. And though I didn’t yet trust myself, I watched the drone sway back and forth across the sky with a terrifying immediacy. It responded to each press or flick instantaneously. Tilting a control stick to the left would send the drone hurtling 20 meters to the left. Tilting a different stick upward would cause the drone to ascend to absolutely dizzying heights. With beads of sweat trickling down my forehead and the beginnings of vertigo setting in, I felt like a pilot with the weight of an entire battle on my back.
