Making This Video Made Me Nervous as Hell:

Venice is like a big life size maze. I don't know how anyone navigated the place before the time of Google and Apple Maps. There's no straight lines, the largest canals require a boat to cross and most walkways only fit a few people shoulder to shoulder in width. So where the hell was I going to take my drone off from? I spent my first day there figuring that out.

I usually don't have a very hard time scouting out a spot to launch from. A few things I look for:

1). Lots of open space.
2). No people.
3). No people.

Unlike my still photography, I don't mind humans in my drone shots. I just don't want to draw a lot of attention to myself as I launch a mini aircraft into the sky. Not only that, I need the space to do it and the satellite signal available to launch all the way up into the air. There's very little open space in Venice and of the few spots that exist, most of them are swarming with people.

Luckily I am not discouraged easily. After walking miles upon miles, back and forth across the small island, I found a spot. It wasn't perfect but it was out of sight for the most part. I set a marker in my phone and went on with my day, enjoying the food and sights Venice had to offer.

The next morning I did my usual. I got up at 4:00AM and ventured out with my camera, my tripod and this time my drone. After taking several long exposure shots along the way, I got to my launching spot. I pull out the drone, set up my remote and lift off. When you watch the video, that's the first shot you see. Me. Nervous as hell.

The only problem, I didn't have any satellite signal. When this happens the drone won't go any higher than about 10 feet above the launching point. I wasn't going to see much from that height so I brought it down. Luckily I had a black up plan. I moved over to spot number two and launched from there. Success! I was up in the air and off I went.

Part of my nervousness was the weak signal I had. Due to the towering buildings and limited open space, if I want too far I'd start to lose my connection to the drone. If you don't know anything about flying drones, just know that usually you have a clear image on your phone or tablet to show you what the camera sees. With a weak signal, every so often I'd lose image and have to slowly bring the drone back to where I was, hoping I didn't hit anything along the way.

The second part was that the birds HATED this drone. I usually get a few circling it when I fly. Small ones. But these things were swooping on it. Big massive birds. They were straight up losing their mind over it and I was worried they'd take it down somewhere over the city or, even worse, over one of the canals.

My last concern was, once again, people. Even that early in the morning there were people out. Not many but some. And I came across a few of them. But what I discovered is that they were just as memorized with my drone as I am. One man was quite impressed as he walked his dog and stopped to look on the screen of my tablet. The next day, when I flew it again (from the same spot) I had children running to my side with pure excitement to see what I was seeing. Everyone wanted to see what they couldn't: Venice from above.

For me it's moments like that which bring about a better connection with humanity. It gives me a little more empathy or understanding of a culture I know very little about. Suddenly it becomes clear that most people are good. Most people admire beauty and love life. When it comes down to it we all really want and enjoy the same things. In general I think people are more like each other than different. I think people, as a general statement, are basically good. And that, ultimately, was what helped to dissipate my nerves.

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