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kottke.org posts about Alex Cornell

Dronies!

A dronie is a video selfie taken with a drone. I featured Amit Gupta’s beautiful dronie yesterday:

Other people have since taken dronies of their own and the idea seems like it’s on the cusp of becoming a thing. Here’s one taken by Joshua Works of him and his family on the shore of a lake in Nevada:

The Works clan sold most of their worldly possessions in 2011 and has been travelling the US in an Airstream ever since, logging more than 75,000 miles so far.

Adam Lisagor took this dronie of him and fellow drone enthusiast Alex Cornell standing on the roof of a building in LA:

Adam was inspired to begin playing with drone photography because of Alex’s recent video on Our Drone Future.

Have you taken a dronie? Let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

Update: Jakob Lodwick reversed Amit’s dronie from a pull back shot to a Spielbergesque close-up. This reel from Antimedia begins with a dronie. Steffan van Esch took a group dronie. This video opens with a quick dronie. I like this one from Taylor Scott Mason, if only for the F1-like whine of the receding drone:

Here’s a Powers of Ten-inspired dronie that combines a Google Earth zoom-in with drone-shot footage covering the last few hundred feet:

Adam Lisagor wrote a bit about drone photography and how photographers always come back to the human subject, no matter what format the camera takes:

There’s a reason that you’re going to see a lot of these from drone flyers like me, and it’s this: once you get past the novelty of taking a camera high up in the air, getting a bird’s eye view of stuff is actually a little boring.

What birds see is actually a little boring. Humans are interesting. Getting close to stuff is interesting. I bet if we could strap tiny cameras to bird heads, most of what we’d want to look at would happen when they fly close to people. If we could, we’d put cameras on bird heads to take pictures of ourselves.

The company that Amit runs, Photojojo, is going to start doing rentals soon, including kits for drone photography. And they’re gonna do flying lessons as well. For now, there’s a tutorial on the page about how to make “the perfect dronie”. (thx to everyone who sent in videos)

Update: More dronies from David Chicarelli, SkyCamUSA, and Bob Carey.

Update: From Joshua Works, a pair of new dronies, including one shot from a moving vehicle:

What a great way to record his family’s travels.

Update: DroneBooth is a drone photobooth project from a quartet of ITP students.


Where to sit?

Alex Cornell has constructed a handy infographic to help you decide where to sit at a restaurant or dinner party table.

7 Person Rectangle: It’s very easy to get screwed in this scenario. While it may appear like you can sit anywhere except the ends, this is not so. You are at risk of sitting next to the lonely end-seat, which requires you to speak soley to that person for the duration of the meal.