I am a ground and aerial photographer based on the outskirts of Sheffield and can travel to all parts of Yorks, Lincs, Derbys and Notts with ease.

I was contacted a few days ago by Tree Saw (www.treesaw.co.uk) which is a tree surgery company based in West Yorkshire to do some work for them at Pontefract Castle. They have been appointed to take down well over 100 mature trees that are either blocking the view of the castle or are dangerous because of their size.

The project to do aerial photography and videography will run over 2 days, the first being this morning and the second in early March once more of the trees have been prepared for felling. The company want ground and aerial photographs and video of their work for website and marketing purposes and with over 100 trees to take down at Pontefract Castle it seemed like an excellent opportunity to showcase what they do against a wonderful backdrop

As I was doing a weather check in Sheffield this morning it was a beautiful blue sky with almost no wind which was ideal flying weather for my drone  to capture the shots that Mark and his team needed. However, when I arrived at Pontefract Castle the same blue skies were there but the wind had picked up quite a bit. It was gusting too which made for more challenging flying The wind speed was checked with a hand-held anemometer and was found to be still within safety limits to fly but proved a bit more difficult to maintain a stable platform amongst the trees.

It is always good to have the client on site to “direct” the shoot. I had Mark from Tree Saw as the camera operator and observer as it would have been too dangerous to fly the aircraft and watch the screen too. Luckily they had taken enough of canopy of the trees down that I had space to safely take off and land

I did a site survey, risk assessment and staff briefing for safety purposes before taking off

As with tree surgery, the safety aspect of aerial photography with a drone is paramount. Footprint Photography is fully insured and has all the appropriate CAA permissions to do this sort of work