It had been a day of weird weather, rain, sun, overcast, mugginess, and all kinds in between. After spending 2 hours driving to Fayetteville to work with a client for the day, another 7 or so designing button graphics in a musty old office, the day as a whole really felt like a wash. In fact the already small fraction of my brain demanding optimism was even silent by about 3 o’clock.
ALIENS, I TELL YOU
An alien thought formed a simple sentence entered my mouth while listening to my boyfriend discussing our typical evening decisions, “what do you want for dinner?”, “how was your day?”, “what do you want to do tonight if anything?” So alien even it was entirely un-mulled over, un-thought out, and truly un-thought about all before it was just spoken at him abruptly in the most random way possible. “Why don’t you teach me to fly the drone?” A perfectly reasonable attempt at trying to fill time on a Wednesday evening, but terrible in the way that adverse weather is not ideal for drone flying or learning, or drone pictures. It is typically only good for drone crashing, drone water damage, and wishing away horrible life choices.
A LITTLE BIT OF GOLD
After a bit of deliberation, the drone class was approved. It had, in fairness, stopped raining an hour ago and the sun was trying its’ best to peak out a bit. And for the mugginess, was as we determined the natural state of Raleigh, North Carolina 365 days a year so we shouldn’t really care about it because it isn’t going anywhere. So out we went. Drone in hand out into the parking lot. With my boyfriend guiding me I sent the drone straight up from its take off position with the camera facing the north. As I looked at the camera’s feed on the remote control/phone screen. I started to turn the camera in a slow counterclockwise circle, hoping to appear super cool on my first flying attempt. As the camera panned around to the West it was a rather disarming sight. The photo above was that sight. The mist rising from the darkened ground, sparkling neighborhood lights, and a strong but timid sunset/cloud formation, created a sudden stillness to us pions on the ground. “Wow, thats amazing”, my boyfriend said.”Yeah, it really is”, I replied.
I went to bed that night in a completely different mood that I would have been without seeing the world from that perspective. A little bit of gold in a day full of dirt and gravel. One single shot from high above simply relaying that beauty to the ground when it otherwise couldn’t have been seen. That is magic.