this might be a weird question but bear with me. so i've gotten pretty decent at flying and my technical stuff is mostly sorted out now. the problem is when i look at my shots vs the people i follow on instagram or wherever, mine just look like generic top-down drone shots and theirs look like actual art somehow.

i know a huge part of it is location obviously but even when im in a great spot the composition feels flat. i find myself always defaulting to straight nadir shots or just hovering and pointing forward which i know is lazy. i also think my editing might be too heavy handed ? i tend to crank the clarity and texture sliders in lightroom because it makes stuff pop on my phone screen but maybe thats not right

anyone gone through this and figured out what clicked for them? whether its composition rules or editing stuff or just a mindset shift, interested in all of it

the thing that changed everything for me was forcing myself to shoot at lower altitudes more often. everyone goes straight to max height because you can but a lot of the most interesting aerial shots are actually taken surprisingly low ? like 20 to 40 meters ? where you still get the aerial perspective but objects have actual size and depth to them and you can use foreground elements. the pure top-down stuff can be stunning but you need really graphic subjects for it to work, like a perfect geometric pattern or strong color contrast, otherwise yeah it just looks like a map.

on the editing side i'd say try pulling back on clarity and texture and leaning more into color grading. a subtle grade does more for the mood of a shot than sharpening everything within an inch of its life. try dehaze at like 10-15 instead of cranking texture and see if you prefer it

honestly the best thing i did was just study photos i liked and try to figure out why they worked before i even went out to fly. sounds kind of boring but i spent a few nights just going through photographers i admired and writing down stuff like "low angle" or "leading line from the river" or "shot at golden hour with long shadows" and after a while patterns started showing up. then i started planning my flights around those ideas instead of just going somewhere pretty and improvising.

also dont underestimate time of day ? i used to just fly whenever was convenient and my shots were always fine but a bit lifeless. now i basically only shoot within an hour of sunrise or sunset unless theres something really specific about midday light i want like harsh desert shadows or whatever. the difference is kind of embarrassing honestly