Back in the seventies and eighties did any of you with nice properties get called on by people trying to sell you an aerial photograph of your spread?
The picture might well have been taken by me.
Skyview and General Ltd were our competitors, I worked for the other Leeeds based company, Views. S&G were the victors in a landmark lawsuit regarding airspace rights over private land:
I would shoot up to 70 36 exposure rolls of colour negative per day from a hired Cessna 152 or 172 and, in my time saw most of England, Scotland and Wales from a nominal 500 feet. (We often gave ourselves a discount and flew a little bit lower )
Iād trained as a photographer at Manchester Poly around the same time as Martin Parr and Dan Meadows who some of you may have heard of. I didnāt have the drive of either of those guys and ended up working in advertising before becoming involved in aerial snapping.
When we moved dahn sarf the work was still available but the paycheques seemed to get stuck in the post between Leeds and the South Coast. so, I got involved in computers instead.
Didgital photography came along. I invested Ā£500 in a 2megapixel Samsung with a 300mb microdrive. I now have around 15 various cameras to compete with the 10 or so film cameras i still hoard.
Early retirement due to my first heart attack and subsequent CABG meant a small amount of tax rebate coming my way. After days reading all I could and agonising over my decisions i bit the bullet and got a seconf hand Mavic Air, 6 batteries and hard case via eBay. It was three weeks before i nerved myself to to fly it.
The first flight was over something very level - water. It was fantastic!
Since then i have bought far more drones than anyone needs - Air 2, Mini 2, s900, s1000, F550, Inspire 1 - 4 of them but one drowned - Phantom 3, Droidwork, Tarot, Vanguard, Matrice 210 , 3DR Solo and Iris and a couple more I canāt remember orbe arsed to go downstairs and and check. I have sold none but Iām slowly steeling myself to do so so that I can get soom room space back.
tl;dr - drones and tech and photography keep me sane!