Phantom 4 Pro

Fluen Point

One of the first things I did with my drone was explore some favorite spots around town from vantage points of 100 to 400 feet in the air. Once I grew accustomed to those views, I sought out other areas in Marblehead that had escaped my ability to capture from the ground. On this particular early evening on August 6, 2017, I had flown up over Beacon Street to capture views of Black Joes Pond and Doliber Cove only to then turn the drone and find this view of Fluen Point laid out before me. With boats moored in the [...]

By |2019-09-25T21:55:13-04:00September 26th, 2019|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , |5 Comments

Rocky Shores of Chandler Hovey Park

Sunday, September 1st was the first time I had been out to capture new photos in nearly a month and, with the nice cloud cover, I decided to bring along my drone. I had flown the drone only once in the past year having spent much of 2017 and 2018 exploring Marblehead from the air. I had realized that the drone offered other possibilities than simply shooting from 100-400 feet in the air and had an idea in mind when I drove out to the Neck. I arrived to find the parking lot at Chandler Hovey packed on this Labor [...]

By |2019-09-02T21:30:42-04:00September 4th, 2019|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , |11 Comments

Abbot Hall Caked with Snow

That was quite the mid-March storm with blizzard conditions and over a foot of snow having fallen throughout the day on Tuesday. Having seen the snow stick to everything it touched, I had a few ideas for the morning and woke before sunrise to drive downtown. The roads were well plowed but still a bit tough to drive on and there was little space to park downtown while leaving rooms for the plows to finish working. I found a spot in front of Coffey's and took out the drone first to scout out the sunrise. I flew straight up and [...]

By |2018-03-14T08:09:06-04:00March 14th, 2018|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , |16 Comments

Pond Skating on New Years Day

I have had this image of pond skating at Redd's in mind for years and was so thrilled to have finally captured it. In 2010, Vincent Laforet captured an aerial image of skaters at Rockefeller center from a helicopter and what struck me about the shot was the shadows telling the story of what each skater was doing. I considered hiring my own helicopter or plane for a similar image over Redds Pond but that held too many complications and variables.  A few years ago, drones came on the market but the early ones had cameras better suited for video [...]

By |2018-01-01T16:56:40-05:00January 3rd, 2018|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , , , |62 Comments

Top 10 of 2017 – #4 First Snow of the Season

Another December image and another aerial makes it to the top 5 of the year.  We had an absolutely perfect first snow of the season on December 9th and I went out on the 10th in the morning to capture the results.  That's when I shot the partially frozen image of Redd's that made it to #7 and this aerial image of Abbot Hall that ended up as my fourth favorite image of 2017. My original thoughts on this image: There’s something magical about the first snow of the season.  After shooting around town as the snow fell yesterday, I [...]

By |2017-12-20T10:55:47-05:00December 26th, 2017|Categories: Favorite|Tags: , , , , |6 Comments

Top 10 of 2017 – #6 Sunset Sky over Marblehead Harbor

This is one of only two aerial images that made it into my top 10 list for 2017 which surprised me a bit.  Aerial photography using the Phantom 4 Pro opened up a whole new world of compositions for me and allowed me to capture Marblehead in ways I had only dreamed of before.  Today's image was captured on September 10, 2017 at 6:58pm.  It seems crazy to think that sunsets took place at 7pm only a few months ago as we are stuck in the short days of winter and 4pm sunsets now. On this particular day, I lucked [...]

By |2017-12-20T10:57:11-05:00December 22nd, 2017|Categories: Favorite|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

First Snow of the Season

There's something magical about the first snow of the season.  After shooting around town as the snow fell yesterday, I woke early to capture the picture perfect snow in the light of morning.  Given the relatively warm temperatures, the snow had stuck to all of the tree branches and I knew it would make for a pretty scene.  Also, as we did not have a ton of snow, there would be little of the brown sand littering the roads to ruin the contrast of white snow and black asphalt. I ended up following the same route as yesterday - shot [...]

By |2017-12-10T09:24:49-05:00December 10th, 2017|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , |55 Comments

Thanksgiving Football in Marblehead

One of my favorite Marblehead traditions is the annual Thanksgiving football game pitting Marblehead against Swampscott.  I've attended every game with my son since moving here in 2008 and have captured a few photos of the action on the field in years past.  As I left the house for the game this year, I made sure to pack the drone as the weather conditions seemed perfect. We arrived and watched the game unfold with Swampscott taking an early lead only to watch as the Marblehead Magicians clawed their way back and then sprinted ahead for good.  At half time, I [...]

By |2017-11-27T22:08:01-05:00November 28th, 2017|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Peak Color at Ware Pond

On Saturday afternoon, I took advantage of relatively calm conditions to fly over Ware pond in hopes of capturing some fall foliage.  Marblehead was between storms and I knew that the coming one with 50-70MPH gusts would destroy what little foliage was to be found around town. As luck would have it, the trees surround the water were displaying peak color (though more than a few bare branches could be seen as well).  For a lackluster year of foliage hunting, this was about as nice of a scene as I could have hoped for.

By |2017-10-29T21:28:34-04:00October 30th, 2017|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , , |3 Comments

The Beach at Brown’s Island

Grace Oliver Beach was my first stop on Sunday morning and I launched from the entrance to Crowninshield Road from which I could explore Doliber's cover and Brown's Island.  I was hoping for more color in the dense tree cover at Brown's but found only a hint of yellows and oranges.  Instead of focusing on foliage, I decided to fly higher and capture the whole of the island while focusing more on the beach at Brown's Island as well as the shallow waters. Sunday may have been the final day of this Indian summer as a cold front was due [...]

By |2017-10-22T22:31:15-04:00October 27th, 2017|Categories: Aerial|Tags: , , , , , |39 Comments

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