The use of drones has become a highly controversial subject nowadays. With the potential of being able to have eyes everywhere and originally being used by the military, there has been an outbreak of civilian drones worldwide. The following pictures give us a view of things and places we’re used to seeing from a completely different perspective. Surely, commercial drones have changed the way we see things. After all, having eyes in the sky has its uses. From detecting wildlife to avoiding accidents, helping rescue teams, or just doing art, here are some astonishing photos captured by drones in action!
Is It a Bird? Is It a Plane?
The photographer, Cao Ký Nhân, captured this magnificent photo just outside the city of Tuy Hoa in Vietnam. It shows us a farmer who's practically feeding his ducks - millions of ducks flying right at him! It is kind of scary let's be honest. However, the farmers use the ducks both for their meat and eggs and the birds also help in controlling the insects and weeds growing in their lands. However, we can clearly see that even ducks find a man walking in water interesting. And while any other person would worry about his well-being, this farmer continues feeding them, providing us with this awesome picture.
Diamond Filled Mir Mine
Ever wondered where some of those sparkly diamond accessories come from? Mir Mine is an open pit diamond mine located in Mirny, in Russia’s Siberian region. It is 1.7K feet deep and has a 3.9K feet diameter, making it one of the largest excavated holes in the world! This aerial drone photo is surely breathtaking, but not as much though as the $600-million profit it has registered to have made just in the '90s! The site was in operation for a total of 44 years before closing permanently in 2001. However, the mine is still functioning today underground.
Giant Bath Plug
Imagine this person’s surprise when flying his drone over the peaceful lake of Berryessa in Napa, California, to find a giant hole in it! Is it a portal? Was it caused by a UFO? Is it a giant bath plug? As it turns out, California’s seventh largest lake is man-made, built in the 1950s! Its dam is a major source of electricity for the state. Like everything else, it has a maximum capacity. California’s weather is characterized by long drought periods with no rains, but in 2017, after having an exceptional amount of rain, the lake came close to flooding. Hence, they had to create a drain system to drive the water away.
Closed For Storm
This was an amusement park in New Orleans, originally called Jazzland. The 6,000-square-foot property owned by the Industrial Development Board of New Orleans was leased out to Six Flags in 2002. However, after Hurricane Katrina, over 80% of New Orleans had reportedly sunk underwater, and this amusement park became but a reminder of the apocalyptic-scale damage the hurricane had caused. It has remained abandoned since. Even the welcoming sign still says that the park is 'Closed For Storm.' It hasn’t been without its uses though since many blockbuster movies have taken advantage of the setting, like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World.
Mont Saint-Michel or a Page From a Storybook?
Mont Saint-Michel is located in Normandy, France. The fort has stood there for many centuries since the tides provide a natural and strategic fortification system. The monastery on top of the mount is where it gets its name from. A more daring person would probably cross the land on foot, supposing that the tide doesn’t come in and the mount gets turned into an island again. In 2014, a bridge was built connecting the land to the mount, allowing the water to run freely underneath it. This spectacular photo was not taken by a professional photographer with an SLR cam, but by a drone for the Dronestagram photography contest.
The Ghost Rides
The Boneyard in Arizona is where all aircraft from the military services go to "die." It covers the desert landscape of the 309th Aeroscape Maintenance and Regeneration Group at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Unlimited acres of land serves as a cemetery for decommissioned aircraft. Its low humidity supposedly helps in maintaining all the scraps of metals to prevent corrosion. Recently, a B-52 bomber aircraft underwent extreme repair work and was resurrected. It is now called the Ghost Rider for obvious reasons. It is, however, astonishing to see how these planes seem like old toys waiting for someone to play with them.
The Urban Jungle
When photographer Andy Yeung flew over the city of Hong Kong in an airplane, he saw something spectacular: the city from up high. Skyscrapers soaring high into the skies with different colors, lights, and vehicles creating chaos - it almost makes you dizzy just looking at it. He decided to strap his camera into a drone and create the series called Urban Jungle. This photograph, even though it makes you wonder if it is real or not, is the resulting image captured. Hong Kong is home to over 7.4 million people and is listed to have the largest amount of skyscrapers worldwide.
A Historic Basilica in Italy
This is another picture taken for Dronestagram. The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventual's mother church in Assisi, Italy. Even though it might look like a castle out of the Game of Thrones, it is actually a church. It’s built into the side of the hill and consists of two churches and a crypt which holds to the day, the remains of Saint Francis. In 1997, it got heavily damaged by an earthquake, causing a vault to collapse, killing two people in the accident. Hence, it was closed for two years. Its architecture is a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic styles.
The Weavers' House
This photo might seem scary and alien-made, however, it is actually a bird’s nest and one of the largest ones as well! In the Kalahari Desert, the little hummingbirds called Weaver Birds make their nests in tall trees, or as a matter of fact anything that stands tall enough, out of grass and twigs. A nest like this can host over one hundred birds. Talk about cool mansions! The South African photographer, Dillon Marsh, captured a big number of the weaver birds’ nests in electricity poles, describing man's own building skills and the deep connection we have with nature.
A Wonder of the World
Christ the Redeemer was built from the years 1922 until 1931. It required a collaboration of four engineers and sculptors to create - engineers Heitor da Silva Costa and Albert Caquot and sculptors Paul Landowski and Gheorghe Leonida. It reaches 98 feet high and its arms spread 92 feet wide as it looks over the city of Rio de Janeiro from the peak of the Corcovado mountain. This particular picture was taken by Alexandre Salem and his drone. The statue is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Thousands of visitors flock the place regularly and take great shots with their cameras.
Sinkholes in Guatemala
A mixture of the aftermath of tropical storm Agatha, the Pacaya Volcano eruption and water damage caused by leakage from sewer pipes resulted in a 60-foot-wide and 300-foot deep hole devouring a three-story factory in Guatemala in 2010. It wasn’t the first sinkhole to appear in the area, as the same thing happened back in 2007. Geologists say that sinkholes normally appear when rocky regions made of limestone and clay get devoured by running water underground. However, this being a mixture of other phenomena, it makes it very hard, almost nearly impossible to predict.
Not So Special Morrison's Quarry
A plane, a tugboat, and two cars. No, this is not the beginning of a practical joke. In Morrison’s Quarry in Quebec, just north of Ottawa, there is this beautiful landscape. Due to the overly clear waters, it has been used for scuba diving training, and some occasional bungee jumping and music festivals. It turns out, however, that all the items inside the lake are actually placed there to spike the divers’ interest. The two cars, however, are a different story. One car was dropped there during an action movie being filmed and the other one was a result of some not-so-bright-minded car thieves.
Plane Diving In The Black Sea
One cannot imagine the fear and agony the passengers of the Pegasus Flight 8622 must have felt during the accident. The plane had reportedly just landed in Trabzon, Turkey and then practically slipped into the edge of the hill next to the runway, heading towards the Black Sea. Out of the 162 and 6 crew members, the Pegasus Airline Boeing 737 was carrying, no one was hurt, and they all managed to exit the plane safely. Due to heavy rains that day, the plane got stuck in the mud and didn’t slip into the sea. After a bit of investigation, it was found that the right engine of the plane hadn’t stopped properly.
Bahá’í House of Worship
In Delhi, India, this is best known as The Lotus Temple. The Bahá’í House of Worship is open to all people of every religion, like all of Bahá’í’s temples. It was built by Furiburz Sabha, and he chose to build it with pure white marble and give it this lotus shape as a symbol common in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Jainism. It's surrounded by nine pools that light up and the view from the top gives you a lovely lotus flower shape. The temple has received many architectural awards and is considered to be the most visited religious temple in the world! It opened to the public in December 1986.
Houston's Hurricane Harvey Flood
Hurricane Harvey was the worst flooding disaster in the United States ever to be recorded. This is a picture of Houston after the hurricane. Over 100 people were killed from the hurricane or hurricane-related incidents and over 30K houses were flooded with the estimated cost of damage reaching over $120 billion. There were multiple funds started after the hurricane to help with the restoration costs. During the rescue, teams were active right after the hurricane, and all of the almost 2K licensed drone pilots were out working with the rescue teams. As a result, this image, among many others, were taken.
California's Tubbs Fire
This is the second most destructive wildfire in California, right after the 2018’s Camp Fire. The Tubbs fire started on October 8, 2017, and was contained on October 31. During the fire, more than 36.8K acres of land were burned to the ground and 22 people were killed. Just the damage alone in Santa Rosa from the fire was estimated at over $1.2 million. After a thorough investigation, it was announced that the fire was caused by a private electrical system next to a residential structure. Many charity programs were created to help restore some of the damages that the fire had caused.
Dubai From The Sky
Enough sad stories. This here is a picture of the largest city of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai. It measures over 4,111 square kilometers. After oil was discovered in its waters in the '60s, the city’s population increased by over 300% in just the following decade. It now hosts the world’s largest construction projects and sports events as well as the world’s tallest building and the world’s largest flower garden. We're talking about The Burj Khalifa skyscraper, over 2,700 feet high and the Dubai Miracle Garden that covers over 230,000 feet of land.
Swimming With Sharks
Us humans don’t quite enjoy swimming in shark-infested waters. Well, fish don’t really like swimming nearby sharks either. Yet another beautiful image captured by a drone shows us this school of fish trying to avoid the shark by practically circling it from a safe distance. Maybe that's their way of dispelling their anxiety! It’s almost certain, however, that the shark has managed to grab a bite or two that day. In New South Wales Australia, they have started using drones as a shark detection system, managing to capture incredible images of ocean life.
Vertigo
This clearly is a rock climbing photo. It was shot in Moab, Utah. Moab is famous for its red rock formations, but what's interesting about this area is its unique water carver canyons. The only way to explore them is to get yourself out there and climb, do canyon dives, and explore like a little child! You’d better get life insurance, however, before going, because who knows what’s going to happen. If anyone is afraid of heights, feel free to skip to the next picture as you might get dizzy just by looking at it!
Snowy Central Park
We are mostly used to seeing pictures of Central Park when it's all fresh and green during the spring and summer. That’s why this picture is so unusual and incredible. This drone’s camera caught Central Park, the most visited urban park in the United States, as post-apocalyptically empty! It is amazing how beautiful the city is portrayed over this picture and how calm and empty, it seems when in reality, New York is one of the busiest towns out there! Then again, keeping in mind New York’s unforgivingly cold winters, it makes sense that everyone’s at home enjoying a hot beverage by the fireplace.
Mirror In The Sand
Camels are the kind of animal most people only ever get to see at a zoo. They have evolved extraordinarily to be able to survive the deserts. They use their hump as storage for fat, with a thick skin and adjustable body temperature. They have been domesticated for millennia. What’s most fun about them, however, is that they are known to spit at people as a defense mechanism! This astonishing image was taken by Abdullah Alnassar, as the sun hits the camels in the right angle and creates a mirror effect with their shadows.
Let's Take A Selfie
This photo was taken in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Ostrava, the third largest city in the Czech Republic, is some 15 kilometers from the border with Poland and is also the converging point of three rivers! It used to be an important industrial center until the '90s when the last coal mine was shut down. Now it has grown into a cultural city, home to many different theaters and galleries. Can you spot the humans in the picture though? They do blend in perfectly with the background. We don't know if they went up there to take a selfie with their phones or not, but the picture turned out great!
A Good Catch
Surely someone must have warned these people not to get too close with the whales! Even if they did, they could've at least brought a bigger boat with them, instead of this fishing boat. This photograph is of a group of people in Mexico who seem to be on a leisurely boat trip and unwittingly approached by this gigantic grey whale friend. Even though there are rules in place for when it comes to situations like this one, like for example, to maintain a safe distance (at least 300 feet at sea and 1,000 feet by air), these guys either didn’t get the memo or were in for a pleasant surprise!
Extreme Sunbathing
Isn’t there any place where we can find privacy nowadays? This thought was probably on this guy's mind when he climbed in that wind turbine. Imagine this drone pilot’s surprise when he discovered a man on the very top of it while casually piloting his drone around. As it turned out, this guy was a monk, working on the school that was operating the turbine. He would often climb up there to find his alone time, probably thinking about his retirement! Still, though, this habit takes bunk beds to a whole different level!
See You Later Alligator
One just never knows what he is going to encounter on a trip to a tropical island nowadays. In 2018 on Thailand’s Phuket Island, a crocodile was spotted. This picture is but proof of it. After seeing the crocodile, a frantic eleven-day-long crocodile hunt was initiated. Here’s something that everyday pest control services couldn’t handle! It was finally caught on a beach after a specialists team had laid down eight cages of chicken meat as bait and was taken to Phuket Coastal Fisheries Research and Development Center. It was a 7-foot, 300-pound female crocodile. Better be careful next time!
D.I.Y. Scarecrow
The year 2016’s clown craze was no secret. Many argued that it was a social media marketing campaign for the remake of the movie It. However, hundreds of incidents of people attacking or doing crimes, in general, were reported during this craze in both the U.S. and Canada. This picture was taken during the shooting of a video meant for Instagram reportedly in Huntsville, Alabama. Even though many people have claimed it to be fake and staged, it's still considered as utterly creepy! The clown in this image starts running towards the woods after seeing the drone and finally goes out of sight.
Giant Italian Bunny
Imagine the surprise of the people living in Colleto Fava in north Italy, waking up one day to see a giant 200-foot long pink rabbit in the field! The pink rabbit appears to have fallen from the sky, though a private plane could not have dropped it! It was placed there in 2005 by the artist group called Gelitin and was meant to last until 2025. However, by 2016, it had already fully decomposed. Gelitin is a group of four artists that has been operating since 1993 in Europe and in the U.S. This bunny was meant to be an outdoor sculpture with which people could play or take photos of perhaps.
Pontiac Silverdome
The Pontiac Silverdome was home to the Detroit Lions from 1975 until 2001. It used to be a great stadium until the opening of Ford Field when it was left without a permanent tenant and finally closing in 2006. It ironically got its name from its fiberglass roof, giving it a silver-like color. As we can see in this picture, the roof didn’t last. It was actually sold for just $583K portraying the collapse of real estate in the area. Thankfully, the stadium was long closed by the time the roof got destroyed by a winter storm in 2013. Finally, it imploded and was completely taken down in 2017.
Little Elephants
This beautiful picture shows us a herd of wild elephants. Elephants are scattered throughout the sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Even though they can live up to seventy years, elephants are an endangered species. They are so recognizable that they have been featured in many pop-culture artworks, from literature to paintings, and even in religion! However, they are quite lethal, given that a single misplaced footstep can lead to a fatal accident. There have been reports of them being vindictive to their captors from time to time. One might say that suits them well!
A Delta In Iceland
This picture, even though it might look like it, isn’t some kind of abstract painting. It is a photograph of the branches of Kolgrima River that’s flowing across some flatlands all the way from Vathajökul - Iceland's biggest glacier until it finally reaches the sea. The white water tones are from pale slits while the blue is but a reflection of the sky. The picture was taken by Hans Strand, a Swedish photographer, who, after practicing nine years as a mechanical engineer, switched to landscape photography (perhaps he attended some classes, too!). One thing is for sure - nature is the biggest artist.
A House In The Sky
It’s completely understandable how some people value their privacy, but this is just taking it to a whole new level! This picture is of the Katskshi Pillar in Georgia and even though it makes a great photo to look at, the thought of someone actually living there gets you dizzy. The house on the rock is part of the monastery below and it has been inhabited in the past years by a monk who chooses to be closer to God that way. He actually has his food winched up to him by volunteers from the monastery. Well, he surely doesn’t need to install an alarm system!
Never Ending City
Ah, Mexico City, the capital of tacos, tequilas, and telenovelas! It is no wonder that it is one of the largest metropolitan areas of the West. This picture surely shows it. The city seems to be going on forever, without an end. Mexico City has an estimated population of 21.2 million people, with just over 16K people per square mile, making it also one of the most densely populated cities in the world! The city also has several progressive policies, including on same-gender marriage, abortion upon request, a limited form of euthanasia, just to name some.
Out In The Wild
Here's another example of a drone camera capturing a perfect moment. Gazelles are extremely fast animals that can run up to 60 miles per hour! They live mostly in deserts and grasslands in the savannas of Africa and southwest and central Asia. It is extremely difficult to catch, much more take a nice photo of them, since they are quite timid and elusive. Recently, people have begun to use drones to count and monitor wildlife in areas such as Namibia, in comparison to having some sharp-eyed people count them. Well, a drone can travel a lot quicker and get a better image of the area.