According to 2010 census data the population of Wilmington, DE is about 70 thousand people. I find that interesting because that is also the population of my hometown Tarnowskie Góry in Poland (have yet to take aerial photos of that one… but one day I will!). These two places however couldn’t possibly be more different, starting with their opposite ends of the World locations, through the cities structure, look and overall feel. However the differences both places are equally attractive to photograph. You can see a morning image of the city of Wilmington above. As I already mentioned I do not have a proper aerial of my hometown but here’s an image I took from the city hall tower during my winter visit to homeland in 2011:

As for Wilmington… it’s much closer to where I currently live so I will definitely be back. The opening image of this post was taken right after sunrise. I was hoping for more reflections of the rising sun in the city buildings but all I got this time was some very soft light of the sign barely breaking through the clouds. As you can see for yourself – I have to return and repeat this soon!

The image of Wilmington is a stitch of 16 photos (two horizontal rows of 8) processed entirely in Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom makes it very easy to stitch the photos as long as you capture them with that goal in mind. Then you can tweak the color, saturation and other settings of the image to your liking. I explain this entire process in a form of easy to follow step by step instructions in my Aerial Imaging Guide.

My take off location was from a park so even though I was getting an image of the city the drone was safely hovering above trees and grass. You can email me if you’re interested in more details regarding a possible flight in the same area.

Please make SAFETY your #1 priority when you work with UAVs ALWAYS! Respect the wildlife and other people in your immediate area.