I always wanted to shoot an action sports picture with a drone, so I looked for a very unique location. I found a swimming platform in a Swiss alpine lake that was crystal clear, where you could see all the rocks and the formations through the water.
I drove from Munich to Laax and met up with the skateboarder Cedric Romanens and explained him what I had in mind. He was pretty surprised when I told him where the shooting location would be. For this shot timing was everything because the whole shot is created by Cedric’s shadow and that had to be in the right spot and the right angle to be symmetric – not too long or too short.
Luckily there was a kiosk where you could rent small boats to cruise the lake, so it was easy to get Cedric to the platform. It was not too easy to get the right timing, because the drone camera had a little delay and skateboarding is a very fast sport to shoot. Also the battery life of the drone limits the amount of tries. But after a couple of minutes I pretty much knew when I had to trigger the camera to get the right moment. Luckily Cedric is an awesome skateboarder so he made it a bit easier for me to get the shot. I like the feeling that you don’t really understand the picture when you see it the first time, but once you’ve understood what’s going on – the picture works the way I was hoping.