– John Muir
Nature's Therapy:
When I feel stuck creatively, I like to go out into nature.
Up until last year, that meant a quick trip to the nearest beach or a simple walk in a park. Now, it’s a deep journey through the mountains—the more remote, the better. The farther away I am from being able to access a cell network, the better. Last summer, I unintentionally found myself in that very same predicament and experienced much more than I could ever imagine. This is that story in words and pictures.
If you’ve ever flown a drone as a recreational hobby, then you know that flying in public spaces can be very nerve-wracking. That’s why I decided to take my drone out for a “real” test spin in one of the only areas where you can do so legally and freely while pushing it to its limit: a national forest, the Los Angeles National Forest to be exact.
The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. It’s especially so for someone who grew up in one of the flattest geographical areas in the country (Texas) where a large hill can be interpreted as a mountain. During this trip, I thought to myself about how small we are as human beings and how lucky we are to be the ones looking up. Of course, with a drone, you’d be looking down 😊
I stopped at almost every turnout to peek over every ridge with the hopes of somehow capturing a glimpse of something even more spectacular than the next. But right before I reached Twin Peaks my drone batteries had been completely drained from the constant flights, I was on 1/4 of a tank of gas on a mountain, and had no cell service.
My best bet was to keep driving, cross my fingers, and follow signs to Palmdale in hopes of stumbling upon the nearest town or gas station. An hour and a half later, after 16 hours of total traveling, I had finally made it to a small town near a Joshua Tree reserve to fill up.
By the time I got back home, I found out I didn’t hit “Record,” and the photos I took outside on the drone were too dark to recover. In that moment, I vowed to, 1) prep more, and 2) attempt that very same trip to document the journey in hopes of getting real footage to share.
The videos and images below are from that new trip.
[arve url=”https://youtu.be/HmML26Nmf7Y” align=”center” /]
Looking to take the same route I had taken on my first trip, I stumbled upon this valley. Visibility from the ground was about 2 miles so I could barely see what I was capturing; I actually thought the drone’s lens was dirty. When I snapped the shot, I couldn’t see what it captured until I brought it into post. The smog had crawled through the mountains and created this translucent light from the sun’s rays.
I color corrected it to have the same feeling and texture of a painting, and to simulate the surreal-ness of it all. The goal was to print it out on a large canvas, or print it as a triptych and frame it.
Toward the end of the trip as I wrapped up filming on the drone, I pulled out the DSLR and began capturing the magic hour light in the desert. This is one of my favorite photos from the trip. In one shot it captures the overall mood and story from this trip, with an element of mystery to it.
Roads both travelled. The picture on the left depicts where I came from, the one on the right, where I’m going.
The sun had nearly set, and I jumped out of the car one last time to take a snap of the scene. What I like most about this photo is that it doesn’t feel like it’s in California. The color blending in the sky was magnificent. That’s one of the reasons why I love sunsets so much: it’s almost as if the sky took all the colors in the visible spectrum and produced a denouement of sorts before the sun’s decent.
