Mt. Prospect teen's drone photos fill his popular Instagram account

Flying high over Chicago's lakefront, the blue of Lake Michigan looks almost aqua, dotted with spots of white from the boats in the harbors. The golden sun peeks between skyscrapers of varying heights while trees and cars are specs.

Those are the images Tim Santorineos sees, but he's on the ground holding an iPad and a controller while his drone flies far above snapping photos.

Santorineos, a 17-year-old from Mount Prospect, is the photographer behind @drone_365, an Instagram account that has gained more than 38,000 followers in three months. The Prospect High School junior has been overwhelmed by the attention his photos have received. He has quickly fallen in love with drone technology, which he now sees as a future career path.

"I feel like this is a different perspective that a lot of people don't really get to see," Santorineos said. "Everything you know is based from the ground, but when you go up in the air, everything is different. It's amazing."

Over the summer, Santorineos got his first drone as a gift. He thought it would be fun to use it to take photos, but the camera on it wasn't the best. He used some money he had saved up to invest in a new drone with a more professional 4K ultra-HD 12-megapixel camera.

He created the @drone_365 account while on vacation in California with his family. He took photos of the scenery and the sunsets over the ocean. The response was immediate.

"It was crazy. I had about 1,000 people following me in about a week," he said.

He kept taking photos when he got back to Chicago, using hashtags about the city and tagging local tourism groups, which helped attract even more followers. But Santorineos said the beauty of the city from above is what keeps attracting more and more followers.

"People love Chicago - it's a beautiful city," he said.

His drone can stay in the air for 20 minutes per battery charge, so Santorineos has to plan his photo shoots. He and his father take trips to the city to photograph above Navy Pier, the lakefront, Cloudgate and other attractions. He takes photos around the suburbs, too, including aerial views of the golf course near his Mount Prospect home, which he said looks like a forest from up above.

He posts a new photo every few days, hoping to keep people wanting more.

"It just keeps growing," he said.

One of his photos won a contest from a company called AirVuz and was displayed in New York City's Times Square for nearly two weeks in October.

"That was really, really cool," Santorineos said.

Now, Santorineos has businesses contacting him asking if they can advertise on his account and companies reaching out to try to hire him. He and his family are still discussing if he will start his own drone photography business and they say they would need to talk to experts about the legalities involved.

Before he was given a drone, Santorineos said he thought he wanted to be an app developer. Not anymore.

"I don't want to be in a room with a laptop all day just doing hours and hours of coding. That's not where I want my future to go," he said.

He would rather be out exploring the world from his new perspective and helping develop the still mostly unregulated world of drone technology, he said. Santorineos has done a lot of research about how drones can be used in real estate, after natural disasters and to help see world locations that are hard to reach, but the privacy concerns many people have about drones are real, he said.

"Drones are a big responsibility," Santorineos said.

Because Santorineos is not making money off his drone, he is not subject to rules and regulations on his photography.

Next year he hopes to become a certified drone pilot, which will require passing tests and getting licensing.

When Santorineos told his Prospect High School entrepreneurship teacher Paul Hennig about his new hobby, Hennig worked it into the class curriculum.

He invited a drone professional from Elgin to come speak to the class and to get in touch with Santorineos about his future.

Hennig said Santorineos is a dedicated student and that he expects him to succeed at whatever he sets his mind to. "I just want to encourage him to pursue this, and it's inspiring to see him so engaged and excited," Hennig said.

While Santorineos plans to keep posting photos of Chicago from all angles, given his Greek heritage, he hopes to one day shoot photos of Santorini, a Greek island that has become a popular wedding destination.

"It's beautiful there. There's is a volcano that would be an amazing place to fly over," he said. "But Chicago is never boring, either."