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[PARTY] Photographer Blake Dawson has spent the last few weeks sifting through hundreds of photos. His photos are probably a little different than yours, though, because he took his from 400 feet in the air. The 28-year-old photographer specializes in drone photography, using his DJI Inspire I photo drone.

He’s compiling them for his upcoming show titled Movin’ on Up: See Buffalo From Above, this Friday, June 26. He’s picked out dozens of photos which will be on display in The Public office alongside food and drink from local vendors like Allentown Pizza, Lockhouse Distillery, Buffalo Distilling Company, Hamburg Brewery, Ashker’s Juice Bar, Butterwood Sweet & Savory, as well as displays by Wrafter Built, a PLINKO prize wheel to benefit the Massachusetts Avenue Project, and entertainment by the Ellen Pieroni Quartet and GLDN Girls.

This week we talked to Dawson, a graduate of Media Arts from Fredonia University, about how he got into drone photography and what he’s had to sacrifice to get the perfect shot.

 

A photo posted by Blake Dawson (@blakedawson) on May 25, 2015 at 5:32am PDT

Tell me about your first drone.
It was a DJI Phantom I. I happened to be on the web looking at stuff and I stumbled across it a couple years ago. I had an opportunity to go to Rochester to play in an outdoor hockey game with the Rochester Americans, and I was like, “alright, I’m getting this drone, we’re going to fly it and capture some good footage.” But when we got there they told me we were too close to the airport and I wasn’t allowed to fly it!

So to create your photographs, you’ve had to learn a lot about the FAA’s rules on flight, haven’t you?
The FAA has regulated that hobbyists can’t fly above 400 feet. With my new drone I can set a cap so that I never surpass 400 feet, which is about the height of Buffalo City Hall. Five hundred to 1000 feet is commercial airspace. There are some people that break that rule and that bothers me because God forbid something happens, [the government] can easily crack down and say we can’t fly at all. Remember when that guy landed a drone on the White House lawn?  After that the company that makes my drone put a no fly zone on Washington DC. You can’t power up a drone in that city. I can’t power up my drone and take off there, it just won’t let me. It’s built into the app, the GPS on the drone knows where I am. If I’m within five miles of an airport, I also can’t take off. Thankfully the city of Buffalo seems pretty cool with letting people fly drones around downtown.

 

A video posted by Blake Dawson (@blakedawson) on May 11, 2015 at 8:21pm PDT

Have you ever gotten in any trouble or receieved any warnings?
No, no, I’ve been really fortunate. I got a heads-up from the Coast Guard once while I was down by the Erie Basin Marina filming right by the lighthouse. An officer at the Coast Guard station asked if I was filming the Coast Guard Station and I said no. I showed him some of the footage and he said that it was fine. Buffalo has been really supportive.

I heard something unfortunate happened to you while shooting over Niagara Falls this winter.
Ahh, that was interesting…I’d flown over Niagara Falls a few times previously, all in the summer time, and got some amazing footage. It’s one of my favorite spots to shoot because obviously it’s gorgeous. So when the falls froze over this winter I knew that there were going to be people trying to get drone shots of the Falls. I get up to Niagara Falls and I see that there’s still some mist up there. It was about 20 degrees that day and the windchill was like negative two and I was up there at sunrise, mostly to avoid spectators and distractions. I took off and I got about 100 yards out when the warning system on the drone started going off and the fail safe starts to automatically bring it back to me. But as it comes back it flies right through the mist and it starts to wobble, and that’s when I realized the engines were freezing over. It’s going lower and lower and about 10 yards from where I was standing it dipped below the edge and I was like, “welp, that’s it.” I watch it shatter all over the rocks and I’m just standing there frozen still holding the monitor. It was heartbreaking! But I learned from it and I probably would have been more upset if someone would have gotten that shot before me.

Well, other than Niagara Falls, what are some of your other favorite places to shoot?
Hoyt Lake has been one of my favorites, it’s been my testing ground of sorts. Albright-Knox, History Museum, Delaware Park is right there. You really get some space to get up and test some things out. The other area that I’ve really liked is LaSalle Park. There is a lot of greenspace, some water, and then the Peace bridge of course. Another one is the Frank Lloyd Wright Boat House. I was down there recently and I got lucky because the fireboat, the Cotter, came by and it blasted off its fire hoses so I was able to get some good pictures of it and some amazing video footage.