Drone Stories

Why This Blog Exists

It’s been on my mind for a while to build a blog — a place to share my drone photos, travel memories, and thoughts about the places I visit.

I got inspired by watching drone footage on YouTube and scrolling through Instagram, where professional creators fly expensive gear, shoot in manual, stack filters, and spend hours in post-production.

That’s not me.

I fly DJI Mini-series drones, shoot in auto, use no filters, and do no post-processing. I’m an amateur photographer and a drone enthusiast — nothing more, nothing less.

My Drone Journey

I started with the DJI Mini 2 about three years ago, when the model was already outdated but still good enough as a first real drone. About six months later, I switched to the DJI Mini 3 Pro. The Mini 3 Pro revealed a whole new world to me in terms of quality and features compared to the Mini 2, and it’s the model I’ve loved the most to this day.

I used it for about a year and a half and then, for no particular reason, decided to upgrade to the DJI Mini 4 Pro. It’s faster and delivers slightly better quality, but not enough to win my heart. I’ve been flying it for over a year now, and I’ll upgrade only if it gets damaged. I’m not going to get the DJI Mini 5 Pro just because the internet says it’s better — I wouldn’t notice the difference anyway.

About the Photos & Licensing

I’ve accumulated a lot of drone content — both photos and videos — over the last three years. Most of the photos uploaded here are in their almost original quality, with only metadata/EXIF stripped.

All photos are free to use however you like. If you’re interested in the original source JPG files with metadata, or in 4K 30 FPS video footage, feel free to reach out via the Contact Form. I’d be happy to share those or collaborate on a fun project.

If you use any of my photos for any of your needs, I’d appreciate it if you give credit where it’s due. Thank you.

What This Blog Is (and Isn’t)

This blog is a hobby on top of my other hobby — aerial photography — which itself is an add-on to my passion for traveling and exploring the world. It’s a personal project meant to share my drone photos and experiences with family, friends, and a few lost souls on the internet.

I’m not interested in SEO, ads, or traffic monetization. I’ll keep this site running as long as I can afford it, or until I get bored and switch to a different hobby.

A Note on the Tech Behind the Site

This site is also a personal vibe-coding project. It was built entirely with AI in less than a weekend. I haven’t written a single line of code or touched a config file myself. The architecture and stack were proposed by AI — I just followed along — and I like the final result.

Since the site was published, AI has also been doing regular code reviews, security audits and hardening, and performance tuning. The stack is simple and effective, but intentionally not highly performant.

The infrastructure is a small and cheap Azure VM (D2s_v3). The setup is Apache as a web server, Next.js as the frontend running on the VM, and Supabase as the backend for the database and photo storage. RSS and authentication are also provided by Supabase.

The main performance bottleneck — if it’s not already obvious — is Supabase serving large (~5 MB) JPGs and Next.js optimization running on the VM. I try to do most of the work on the VM and keep the cache warm, but I also rebuild the app quite often while fixing bugs or polishing features, which wipes the cache.

Lighthouse scores are great on desktop and acceptable on mobile. I don’t want to sacrifice photo quality for performance, but I will if I ever exceed my monthly Supabase egress quota.

Thanks & Inspiration

Lastly, I’d like to thank the following creators for their amazing work, inspiration, and for hooking me on the aerial photography hype:

Juho Karhu — creator behind the Alluring Arctic YouTube channel, with some of the most scenic drone footage of lesser-known places.
Gaëtan Piolot — known on YouTube and Instagram as @gaetanpiolot, creating inspiring drone footage featured in many YouTube music videos.
Albert Dros — especially for The Disappearing Beauty of Greenland and the iconic red sailboat shots.
Daniel Kordan — particularly for his breathtaking Mongolia photography and aerials.
Petri Puurunen — for capturing the stunning beauty of Finland from the air.

There are many more creators doing amazing work — these are just the ones I personally follow and keep coming back to.

Hello world!