Drone love.

The FAA released news yesterday of revamped regulations to commercial drone use. Before today it was a lengthy process of actually having to be a licensed pilot in order to fly a drone weighing between .55 and 55 lbs. This was for commercial use only. Any person doing it for a hobby could fly it as long as you were in the proper airspace and your drone was registered. This is big news for smaller production companies and photographers wanting to legitimately add aerial photography and videography to their business model.

“We are part of a new era in aviation, and the potential for unmanned aircraft will make it safer and easier to do certain jobs, gather information, and deploy disaster relief,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “We look forward to working with the aviation community to support innovation, while maintaining our standards as the safest and most complex airspace in the world.”

You’re basically going to have to take a test once every 24 months to prove your airworthiness and that you don’t plan on using your drone for anything bad (background checks, etc…)

“You must be at least 16 years old to qualify for a remote pilot certificate, and you can obtain it in one of two ways:

• You may pass an initial aeronautical knowledge test at an FAA-approved knowledge testing center.

• If you already have a Part 61 pilot certificate, other than a student pilot certificate, you must have completed a flight review in the previous 24 months and you must take a small UAS online training course provided by the FAA.”

Although the new regulations don’t go into effect until the end of August, you can expect people to start trying to sell you just about anything in the way of training and test taking readiness software. Read more about the updates here.

Drive Train Industries

Early in February of this year I had a photo shoot with The Bonfire Effect (fantastic people I might add) at Drive Train Industries in Denver, CO.  We crammed as many shots as we could in a single day, starting at 6 am and finishing just before 6pm. There were tons of challenges shooting in a wharehouse/factory/machine shop/mechanics shop/etc... the biggest being the multiple locations and different lighting situations in each spot. For most of the shots I used a simple off-camera speedlight shot through a diffuser (softbox, diffuser panel) for others I used an alien bees 800 mono light. I was pretty pleased with the shots for how quickly we moved from scene to scene and mixing ambient with the strobe allowed us to see all the texture the location had to offer. Some of my favorite shots of the day were lit only by ambient and the arc welder. Another great part of the day was how awesome the guys in the shop were about getting their photos taken. Couldn't have asked for a better, more willing group to photograph. 

-D

Continuing Content

Quality, original, and consistent content. That's what I feel is the foundation of what keeps your site fresh, your clients engaged, and turns passer-bys into fans. I put my demo reel together last year and I don't know if it has many views at all. Not that I tried to promote it at all, at the time I was employed by marketing agency and wasn't worried if anyone would see my stuff or not (dumb plan). So here it is, this is my Demo Reel. With footage I shot in the US, Mexico, and France. It was a fantastic couple of years of shooting, with clients like; HP, Juniper Networks, Lifesize, Seagate, and Quintess. The wide range of shoots really tests your ability to shoot anything from talking heads to a beach in Cabo (tough, I know) I hope you enjoy!

Content, where do you start?

Since leaving my full-time job, I've been listening, reading, and watching everything I can on how to grow your business and stay relevant. The one thing that keeps being said over and over again is creating content. In Gary Vaynerchuk's newest book  he says "if you're not creating content, then you don't exist", Austin Kleon wrote a book on showing your work, and people like Casey Neistat are creating content, every day. It's a daunting task, one that absolutely needs to be done, but where do you start and what kinds are best for you? Is it a blog post that nobody reads, a youtube channel with 3 subscribers, or an instagram feed that only has likes from your friends? I don't plan on uncovering anything new, but maybe just give myself a sort of road map into what may be the best plan for myself and Front Range Media.  I think the answer is, all of it. Starting out with zero followers isn't really the point, to me. The point is that you're throwing yourself out there, not worried that people won't watch, or that it's been done before. Maybe you can find your own voice in the noise that is social content and content creation. Maybe you can stand out enough that a few will notice and want to work with you. As I begin to explore the world of content creation I would hope that some will follow along and interact along the way. The top performing youtubers are creating 7-10 minute videos everyday. Every. Single. Day. I have a hard enough time trying to keep up with my photo-a-day project over on instagram. Wish me luck, here I go.