This Saturday I wanted to go back out to the shirehall and take some drone photos of the square skylights on the roof of the building near the register office. I’d noticed the series of squares on a wider angle photo but hadn’t seen them earlier.
I loaded the drone up with the freshly charged batteries and memory card then headed out to the location. It was supposed to be a dry day on Saturday with the rain to follow on Sunday. Only, when I arrived at the Shirehall, it started drizzling with rain. I thought I might be able to wait it out and get the drone up between showers but that wasn’t to be. I don’t want to risk launching my drone when it’s wet as the water can get into the motors on the props and cause issues in the longer term. I’d return the next day, if the plans allowed for it.
Sunday morning came around and it was dry and sunny, so I jumped in the car with my DJI Mini 4 Pro sub-250g drone and parked up at the Shirehall once more. Setting up the drone, unfolding the legs, removing the gimbal cover and switching it on I placed it on the roof of my car. The remote control went on a lanyard around my neck and the control knobs were screwed onto the threaded bolts before turning it on. Only once I’d had the message “Home Point Updated” did I take off and fly it away to do my bidding.
Up over the square skylights that appear as if some sort of 3D chessboard, some clear and some blue. It seems the blue colour is water proofing to prevent further leaks from getting into the building beneath. The roof was partially wet from the day before and this appears in the photo. After catching up with this part of the building I headed up to the stairwells visible in the side of the main building.
In August last year I had a tour around Shirehall when I was shown around some of the insides of the buildings and even allowed up onto the roof with my guide. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time in the stairwells and I’d love to spend a lot of time making images of the views around the artery of the building.
I sent the drone up to the top of the stairwell and then videoed the scene travelling downwards, but this footage was less than ideal as I was slowing down towards the bottom as I didn’t want to land on the roof and then struggle to get it back. So I reversed the idea, got to a safe place at the foot of the building and then videoed going upwards.
I also captured some video footage of traversing along the front of the building in front of the coloured film covered reflective windows. Then there was some footage of the square skylights and the library building. I’m wondering about mixing them together in the same short reel, but for now I added them as short videos on my instagram story.
I usually stick to still photos from my drone, but for some reason a video seemed to be able to tell more of the story. I also played around with dolly zoom and moved away from the Lord Hill’s Column whilst zooming in on the same structure. It’s a feature of the films Vertigo and Jaws that has made its way into modern films also. Not particularly successful in this test flight but still an interesting effect to try out. It is weird how the scene compresses the more you zoom in, but it’s also strange how you start seeing more of the background too.
The photos and video from this visit were used in my project update review in Week 9 of Semester 1 and the traversing video was singled out for some praise, and it was suggested it might be useful in the degree show if it still fits the overall aesthetic of my practice to have it running on a screen near to my work.
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