“In local villages, the drone would be a good topic of conversation. Sharing images and videos with the locals was a good way to break the ice.”
“IN LOCAL VILLAGES, THE DRONE WOULD BE A GOOD TOPIC OF CONVERSATION. SHARING IMAGES AND VIDEOS WITH THE LOCALS WAS A GOOD WAY TO BREAK THE ICE.”
Fresh from an expedition to Upper Mustang in the Nepalese Himalayas, where he used a DJI drone to film a video of professional bikers racing down the mountains, Joshua Goh recalls the effort put into obtaining the footage. “Dealing with high altitudes and high winds in the mountains meant I only had short windows of opportunity to fly the drone,” says the director of art and design production house Imaginator Studios, who took up drone videography two years ago.
Despite being proficient at operating remote controlled equipment – Goh has been flying helicopters and planes for the past decade – he had to pull out all the stops to niftily maniplate the drone into place. “I was trying to get chase footage of the bikers doing downhill free riding, and trying to descend the drone at high speed was quite challenging,” Goh, 39, says.
But for all the technical dexterity he has gained in learning to operating the drone, it is the human interactions it has facilitated that he treasures most. From using his drone to help mountain climbers he met along the way map out their climbing routes to scoring a free meal in exchange for sharing footage of a resort with its owner, these are the moments that Goh remembers most vividly.
He says: “In local villages, the drone would be a good topic of conversation.
Sharing images and videos with the locals was a good way to break the ice.
