As with many popular inventions of the 20th and 21st century drones started life as a military project, and over the decades they have evolved in technology, size, uses, and now price. Ok they still aren’t cheap enough that every man, women, and child will be having one just yet, but they are cheap enough for people with a keen interest.
Now a major use for drones over the last few years is to attach cameras to them to capture breathtaking, and previously unobtainable pictures, and with drone technology increasingly becoming a daily fact of life, the burgeoning artistic endeavour of drone aerial photography has been further legitimated with the announcement of the winners of the 2016 Drone Aerial Photography Contest, now in its third year.
Created in collaboration between National Geographic and Dronestagram (no we didn’t know that existed either), there were 3 categories that photos could be entered into, and a panel of judges including the likes of National Geographic Deputy Director Patrick Witty, and Emanuela Ascoli, editor-in-chief of National Geographic France and Dronestagram, picked three winning entries (one from each category) from 6000 submissions, as well as two runners up (although these are called 2nd winner and 3rd winner) based on creativity and photographic quality.
The Travel Category winner was: Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, Umbria, Italy by fcattuto
The Sports Adventure Category winner was: Moab Rock Climbing by Maxseigal
The Nature Wildlife Category winner was: Kalbyris forest Denmark by Mbernholdt
And you can check out the other stunning winning airborne photographs, as well as more submitted pictures over at www.dronestagr.am