One of my favorite photos: Geometry and fall colors

Photography is geometry, plain and simple.

Photographers are always looking for and studying ways to improve their photographs with angles. It's just our nature and mine for sure. Fast-forward to today's technology and a new tool is introduced besides faster cameras and lenses, the UAV-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, aka, the drone. My mission was to capture fall colors from around the Northwest suburbs for a page in the Daily Herald. Sure, in the past, I would apply geometry to this assignment, but through the years, the one angle I could not acquire was the one higher than a six-foot step ladder.

Completing the geometry sequence by using the drone was a game changer for me. Scoping out different locations, I found that Busse Woods near Elk Grove Village was popping with color near the sky bridge, so I checked the airspace, wind-speed calibrated the drone's compass and away she went.

Flying missions for the Daily Herald is definitely one of the highlites of this job and flying over the treetops to capture the colors in all their splendor was amazing. Lining up the drone over the bridge and just waiting for someone to cross either walking or biking took only a few minutes and produced an eye-catching array of colors, shapes and this picture that appeared on the front page of the Daily Herald the next day.

Invaluable indeed.