Wonder on the Web

Inside a Neo-Byzantine Church

Here’s a place where the ison noted in our drone music article might feel at home with the cameras of our drone photography article: The talented drone pilots of France’s BigFly productions sent a camera-equipped quadcopter soaring through the 137-year-old Église Saint-Louis in Paimbœuf, France, to get this stunning video. The footage is so flawless, it’s hard to believe it’s not CGI! We love the close-up views of sculptures, windows, and frescoes that would be next to impossible to get a good look at from the ground. Important note: no art or architecture was harmed during the making of this video. (No maneuvering fails here, thankfully.)

Apartheid’s Urban Legacy

Johnny Miller uses drone photography to highlight an issue we may be blind to: the lingering segregation of urban spaces, 22 years after the end of apartheid. His documentary project, Unequal Scenes, uses drones to capture images of South African cities and suburbs from above, where evidence of enduring inequality is easy to see. Miller shared more about his project with The Atlantic’s CityLab:

Drone photography is interesting because it affords people a new perspective on places they thought they knew. Humans have this amazing ability to think we know a situation, having seen it so many times from the same perspective. It becomes routine, almost a pattern. When you fly, you totally change that.

America from Above

Dave Tebbutt went on a road trip across America to get this great drone footage, covering 30 states and 13,000 miles. He captured snowy pine forests, the California coast, a herd of wild buffalo, and a lot of neat desert shots (apparently taken when his car broke down in Death Valley). Tebbutt did all the editing and music for this video himself, too.

Do you find the desert magnificent? You’ll want to watch this drone footage of Sedona, Arizona, famous for its red rock formations. If you’ve been there, you might recognize Cathedral Rock and a (manmade) landmark, Chapel of the Holy Cross, featured in this video at 00:41.

Save Ferrets

Black-footed ferrets are North America’s only native ferret, and they’re on the endangered species list—only 300 of them are left in the US. Part of the problem is that they’ve been picking up a disease, called the sylvatic plague, from the prairie dogs they eat. So the US Fish and Wildlife Service has come up with a creative plan to treat diseased prairie dogs in north-eastern Montana: drones outfitted with a “glorified gumball machine” that will fire vaccine-laden M&Ms at 30-foot intervals to the ground below. Yes, chocolate candies, smeared in medicated peanut butter, delivering true sugary goodness and a cure for our ferret friends.

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