Chris, what’s the story behind your number 1 photo?
This photograph was taken in January 2020. I’d been a drone photographer for around three years at this point and wanted to give the new DJI Mavic 2 Pro a test in snow. Up to this stage good drone images of snow were pretty much non-existent and I was keen to change this.
I had seen that Scotland was due a major dumping of snow in a 36 hour period. I jumped on a plane at Gatwick and flew to Glasgow. I then drove for 4 hours up the West Coast of Scotland through a spectacular blizzard. This was so heavy it stopped me flying the drone and the phrase “be careful what you wish for’ was foremost in my head. I had various ideas in my mind of what could make a great image, none of which were quite working as the snow was just too thick to fly the drone. My last idea of the day was to drive onto the Glenfinnan Viaduct made famous by the Harry Potter movies.
A quick look at my Sat Nav told me I could just about make it before sunset. I set off through the thick blizzard towards Fort William where the snow turned to heavy rain which wasn’t ideal. I decided I would still drive out to Glenfinnan just to see what it looked like with tentative plans to go back in the morning. On the 20 minute drive the rain turned to snow again, and as I turned the corner into Glenfinnnan I was met with what can only be described as a Narnia-esq scene. I knew I had just minutes of daylight left so I launched the drone quickly to capture the scene. Incredibly the storm eased enough and after sending the drone off I turned it around to shoot the viaduct. I captured just two frames before it began hailing heavily, I could see the hail battering the drone camera via my controller. so I scrambled it back knowing I had two frames in the bag.
I visited the site the next day and the snow had completely disappeared. My image appeared in most national newspapers the next day including the prized Guardian Eyewitness pages and it later went on to feature in the Landscape Photographer of The Year Exhibition.
With over 30 years experience as a photojournalist Chris Gorman is also the UK's foremost drone photography specialist, known as "The Big Ladder Photographer".
Chris fuses the latest DJI drone technology to shoot beautifully crafted images that have appeared in media around the world from The Guardian and The Sunday Times to National Geographic and The New Zealand Herald and many more.
Thanks to his experience as a national newspaper picture editor Chris is able to capture images with the knowledge of exactly what an editor wants to see.