Inside My Bag | Abstract Aerial Art

Better known as Abstract Aerial Art, we are two brothers and best mates from the UK, JP and Mike Andrews.

Specialising in photographing bizarre aerial images of planet Earth, the focus of our work centres around surreal, top-down perspectives of overlooked objects, structures, and landscapes.

Captured using our unique style of drone photography, we aim to show there is still a whole world out there waiting to be discovered.

Every shot is of a real place on our planet. Other than slight colour and contrast enhancements, they are not manipulated in any other way.

The ethos behind every picture is simply, “the point is not to work out what it is, but to show how weird and wonderful the world can look from above.”

As the majority of our time is spent travelling around the world to a wide variety of, often hard to get to, locations, practicality is our primary focus when it comes to gear. The minimal amount of equipment we use for our work is a true reflection of this statement.

Since we began doing this three years ago, we have learnt to find a balance between gear that offers us the best quality possible, in a package that is transportable and useable in the most practical way.

In an ideal world, we would love to have high-end cameras attached to high-end gimbals and drones. However, in the real world (costs and legalities aside!), it’s just not feasible for us to travel around the world with that sort of equipment in tow.

Listed below is what we need to get the job done to the high standard we expect of ourselves, nothing more, nothing less.

Drones

DJI Phantom 4 Pro The drone responsible for the majority of our work and, in our opinion, the best drone you can buy for a balance between quality and practicality.

The amount it’s been flown, the places it’s travelled, and the conditions it’s had to deal with; we have asked a lot of the Phantom 4 Pro! It has always delivered. A true testament to how good this thing really is.

DJI Mavic 2 Pro We initially brought this as a backup drone to the Phantom 4 Pro, however, we have found ourselves using it more and more in recent times.

We have come to the conclusion that the almost indistinguishable drop in picture quality compared to the Phantom 4 Pro is a sacrifice worth paying, for the practicality benefits the Mavic 2 Pro offers. It’s very likely that it will become our primary drone moving forward.

(Looking for something more affordable? See: best drones under $200 guide)

Filters

PolarPro – Cinema Series – ND 4/8/16, ND 4PL/8PL/16PL There is always one of these filters attached to our drone. We never take a shot without one. The best in the business and the only drone filters we would recommend.

The cinema series pack gives you eight different options covering almost every lighting and condition situation you would find yourself in. A must have for anyone serious about shooting quality content from a drone.

Hardware & Software

Apple MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) It has survived everything from 40+ degrees and 100% humidity in the Australian outback to the freezing Icelandic winter and continues to keep going, never putting a foot wrong! What more could you ask of a piece of equipment. The poor thing is probably long overdue an upgrade and has fully earned its retirement!

Adobe Lightroom Our go-to software for editing. We like to let the locations do the talking so slight colour and contrast enhancements is all that we do to our shots. Adobe Lightroom is perfect for this.

Apple iPad Pro 2 Mainly used in conjunction with Google Earth for research purposes. We have always found having the bigger screen an iPad offers, compared to that of a phone screen, far easier and quicker to do this research.

Google Earth app The tool responsible for the locations we shoot! Google Earth is our primary research tool and we dedicate a huge amount of our time to this app looking for things we want to photograph. We could not find what we do without it.

LaCie Rugged Mini 4TB Hard Drive Fast, reliable, and survives the harsh conditions we put it through. Added bonus, easy to spot when you’ve put it down somewhere! Quick piece of advice: always do a double or even triple back up. No matter how reliable any hard drive is, you don’t want to lose your work (speaking from experience!).

www.abstractaerialart.com | @abstractaerialart