this might be a weird question but bear with me. i feel like a lot of drone footage online has this very recognizable "drone aesthetic" ? the straight-down birds eye, the slow pull back reveal, the perfect symmetry stuff. and dont get me wrong some of that looks great but after a while it all kind of blends together

ive been trying to make my aerial photos feel more like actual photographs rather than just "look i have a drone" content. like when i show them to non-drone people they always just say oh cool a drone shot rather than actually engaging with the image itself

not sure if im explaining this well but does anyone else think about this or have ways they approach composition differently. i mostly shoot landscapes in the pacific northwest if that matters

yeah i know exactly what you mean and ive thought about this a lot actually. i think the biggest thing is treating the horizon and foreground the same way you would with a regular camera ? like using the rule of thirds properly instead of just centering everything because centering is easy from above. also varying your altitude more intentionally rather than just going up to max and shooting from there, some of my favorite shots are from like 30 or 40 feet where you still get the leading lines and sense of scale but it doesnt scream DRONE FOOTAGE

for pacific northwest landscapes specifically i'd say lean into the mist and low clouds when you get them, theres something about a partly foggy shot over trees or water that feels almost painterly and really doesn't look like the typical drone post. also shooting into the light can work really well there, you get these nice silhouette effects with the mountain ridgelines

one more thing ? i started looking at landscape photography from people like Ansel Adams and just thinking about what makes those compostions work, then trying to find similar framing from above. its a bit of a mental shift but it helps

honestly the editing style makes a huge differnce too. a lot of drone photos get that same look because people use the same handful of presets. if you're processing your own raw files and adjusting things manually to match the actual mood of the place you were at, it just reads differently. takes longer but the results dont look cookie cutter