Two North Olympic Peninsula commercial photographers are using unmanned aerial systems — commonly referred to as drones — to capture images that previously could be seen only by birds.
Mike Porter of Port Ludlow and John Gussman of Sequim both offer drone photography services to their customers.
Porter, 74, is a retired U.S. Air Force and Alaska Airlines pilot who combined his love of flight with photography.
He now owns High Flight Photo.
“The parallel here is there are two hobbies that I really enjoy doing — photography and flying — so I married the two together and I have been trying to do this for a long time,” he said.
Gussman, 64, is a career photographer who has been capturing beauty in the Sequim area since the mid-1970s.
He is the co-director and the director of photography of “Return of the River,” a film about the removal of the Elwha River’s two dams.
He owns Doubleclick Productions.
They both operate DJI Phantom drones equipped with high definition cameras that cost about $1,300.
Porter received authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration on May 8 to use his drone for commercial purposes.
“I was the first in the state of Washington to get one,” he said.
The certification allows him to obtain liability insurance in case his drone crashes and causes property damage or injures a bystander.
To comply with FAA regulations, Porter must yield right of way to other aircraft, remain at or below 400 feet above the ground, and avoid prohibited areas such as airports.
“You must understand that the certificate authorization I got has some real stiff restrictions,” Porter said.
“I just can’t fly anywhere. I have to pay attention to what the FAA tells me to do.”
Gussman has applied for FAA authorization.
Using a drone to take photos allows both men to photograph landscapes and clients in a way that was not possible until now.
“That is what makes this so wonderful. I can get perspectives on stills and video that I could only dream of before,” Gussman said.
“You couldn’t even get the same thing before because drones work in that area between zero and 400 feet that is too low for an airplane, and too low — for the most part — for a helicopter.”
And helicopters “are so expensive, that unless you are doing a real big budget shoot, nobody can afford [it].”
With modern drones now available, “I can actually use it without a big hassle,” Gussman said.
“Now I am just like a kid in a candy store. I dream up these shots and camera movements when shooting a video that you could never do before.
“It just really opens up a whole new area to get angles and movements that you couldn’t do before.”
The one drawback is that all video shot by a drone is silent “because all you would hear would be the buzzing of the motors,” Gussman said, noting audio can be added later in post-production.
Porter is excited to be a trailblazer in the field.
“It is a new frontier,” he said. “Who would believe this guy, at 74 years old, would be out doing this?”
Gussman has been operating drones for the past four years.
“The original quad-copters and hex-copters we were putting together were really rudimentary, and they didn’t have the GPS technology that there is today to maintain stable flight,” he said.
“And the gimbals, which is the key to getting stable video — the holy grail of drone work — were very expensive and hard to come by.”
But technology has advanced and the prices have been reduced “to the point where just about anybody can fly one of these things,” he added.
The drones are operated using an iPad or similar device that receives and communicates signals from the aircraft and can program it to follow a pre-specified path.
“That has become the interface between the two,” Porter said. “I can do all the programming on it.”
The new generation of drones are fairly easy to operate, Gussman said.
“The older ones were harder to fly because they were manual. It was like trying to balance a marble on the back of a spoon, so you would spend all your attention just keeping it in the air.”
But now “you can take your eyes off these drones and compose with the screen and do your moves, and feel pretty confident about it. You couldn’t do that before. It has gotten a lot easier.”
For more information about the two photographers, visit www.highflightphoto.com and www.dcproductions.com.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
