Drone photography and the re-aestheticisation of nature

HOLLMAN VERÓNICA

Decolonising and Internationalising Geography: Essays in the History of Contested Science

Springer

Lugar: Cham; Año: 2020;

Drones offer the possibility to depict places from perspectives difficult to achieve in a direct way. They make visible an order of forms, patterns and relationships that, from the surface is either difficult or impossible to have. Although originally developed as a military technology, and hence highly restricted to military practices, drones are currently more accessible for a wider range of users. Perhaps, drone photography and its recent popularisation are the most outstanding evidences of how the use of this technology has experienced a shift from the military to the civil arena. Both the altitude and the proximate perspective that drones achieve make the drone picturing a renewed challenge. Assuming that each technology of vision organises what we observe with our eyes, I will explore how drone photography is picturing nature. By focusing on the visual universe displayed under the category Nature on Dronestagram, a website devoted to drone images, I will identify the mechanisms upon which drone photography is reshaping the geographical imaginations of nature.