Main Street Lights in Canton, New York

Route 11, the main road connecting the whole North Country (we don’t have any Interstates), runs through a series of quaint downtowns, where it temporarily becomes Main St. The impressive stability of the DJI Mini 3 Pro meant that I could capture long, smooth light trails from headlights and taillights representing the evening’s traffic.

Main Street Lights in Canton, New York

Dawn on Interstate 64

Good news, everyone! A new, much-lighter, yet equally capable drone (the DJI Mini 3 Pro) means aerial photography while traveling in a way that was never possible with my chunky Phantom 3.

In today’s image, northern Kentucky presents a classic American combination: old barns and farms, crossed by the monolithic expanse of the Interstate system.

Dawn on Interstate 64

A Seven-Year-Old’s Whole World

Neal Stephenson’s “Fall” suggests that that pattern of one’s childhood hometown is patterned deeply into the brain. This picture captures pretty much everywhere I could get to on my own (i.e., on my bike) when I was seven years old—so, basically my whole world at that point.

A Seven-Year-Old's Whole World

Saturday Sun on Ski Jump

As a child, I dreamed of flying over my home town—viewing all of the familiar paths from high above. Visiting that town last weekend, I was able to photographically make that dream a reality. The forests where I hiked and the town ski jump are all laid out before the drone’s lens.

Saturday Sun on Ski Jump

Bridge to Heritage Park

As a child, I was deeply interested in the idea of islands—these isolated, well-defined chunks of land that were separated from everyone else. My favorite LEGO sets were those modeling pirates marooned on desert islands. I wonder what my childhood self would have thought of living in a town with an uninhabited island at its center?

Bridge to Heritage Park