The drone recordings on Njupeskär waterfall were quite an adventure! Down at the waterfall, Ivan recorded me with the drone without any GPS signal. In “normal” condition, you have connection with GPS which helps piloting and compensating the drone even with strong winds. Near the waterfall, we had the possibly most disadvantageous conditions: situated in a canyon between huge rocks, wind, no GPS and water in the air, which basically means rain - the worst enemy of the drone… Nevertheless, we wanted to accomplish the waterfall mission and after the boat landing in the National Park, this wouldn’t crazier! I didn’t realize much of the challenge, as I was concentrated on playing and not dying of cold… But Ivan told me about the recording later, he was sweating and lost at least one kilo from stress, this had been the hardest thing ever! Now he knew which angel the GPS is and how devilish difficult it is without! Fighting not to crush into the rocks of the canyon surrounding us, not to approach the powerful and intimidating cascade precipitating from hundreds of meters above us, and filming me according to the music in a perfect movement combining nature and cellist…: for Ivan, this was pure virtuosity, like playing a Paganini Caprice in the waterfall…
We didn't take this picture... but it might have looked like this... just with out the pieces of meat on the drone;-)
On top of the waterfall, our drone had to face a new challenge, maybe the hardest one until now… During the flight, the king of the sky, an EAGLE spotted the drone and started to follow it! Of course, the eagle was used to be the biggest, most powerful animal in the sky that could follow and eat anything he wanted, with great success! Until today. He hadn’t met a drone yet… Ivan piloting the drone was getting nervous and tried to “run” away from this persistent follower, making big circles, going up and down, accelerating and slowing down to escape. But the eagle, sure of his dinner, kept up and it was a breath-taking race to watch up there in the sky! Of course, we didn’t want to hurt the bird and for Ivan, the only goal was, to land safely and to avoid any crash or touching the bird! The eagle had for sure more flight experience than Ivan, but somehow, he managed to outmanoeuvre the “plastic dinner” - rather ungently - so that it crashed forward to a thorny plant on the border of the river in this dry and endless landscape. The eagle was flying a few more circles, confused and still hungry… Ivan – hungry aswell from this stressful moment- offered himself a big piece of chocolate to calm down and celebrate the victory…