A Bird’s eye view of Abingdon
Panoramic over Abingdon and the River Thames
I’ve always loved seeing the world from different perspectives; It’s why I shoot with crazy wide-angle lenses such as Laowa’s 12mm so often. I recently got my hands on the new DJI Mavic Air 2 drone, so wanted to take it for a spin and see what my hometown of Abingdon in Oxford looks like from the point of view of the birds up high in the sky. Quite happy with the results, still lots to learn, still need to build up my confidence - shooting photos with a digital camera is a completely different kettle of fish to sending a lightweight camera hundreds of meters up in the air and over water. But I’m excited to get to grips with it more and shoot in some different conditions.
The panoramic above was achieved by stitching multiple shots from the air together to create the scene of Abingdon and beyond. I will definitely revisit this shot again and try and get more of the River Thames along the bottom of frame.
Abingdon Museum, at the heart of the town centre
Abingdon from above looks somewhat alien to me to the town I am used to travelling through on a daily basis, from up hight it almost looks like some quaint foreign European town, with all the terracotta roofs and old buildings. I tried to frame up the lovely Abingdon Museum building and town centre opposite in the middle of the frame; it’s such a beautiful building, I’ve had the pleasure of shooting from the ground on multiple occasions, so it was nice to catch it from this angle.
Bridge over the River Thames
The Nag’s Head Pub on the River Thames
I got quite lucky with the weather, as you can see in the panoramic at the top of the page, a storm was building, and shortly after sending the drone up, I began to feel the odd blob of rain, but thankfully the heavens didn’t decide to open until I was packing the drone down - phew, although it got mighty gusty at one point whilst flying. I’m not sure these scenes would’ve looked as nice with wet roads and hazy rain clouds.
Before the rain, lucky to get these shots!
The current situation with the pandemic has really opened my eyes up as a photographer, to the beauty around me. It’s amazing to have the River Thames on your doorstep and the other towns that sit on the river nearby such as Wallingford and Henley; moving forward I will definitely appreciate its beauty (and variety) much more, I’ll never get tired of shooting in the mountains or big epic cityscapes, but I’m excited to shoot more locally on my down time between travels.
Anyone for a game of cricket
Up high over Abingdon
I’ll be adding a few shots from this series to the print store soon, in the meantime enjoy these prints of Abingdon and Oxford taken this summer. Thanks for stopping by!
