K. on a bunker and a drone crash
I met K. at the agreed location: station Overvecht. K. is an exceptional beautiful woman, and she has a character which I did not expect. Het background is diverse, Dutch with Indonesian genes. Good match. Het character is rather rebellious, she loves to try new things and is not scared easily.
We went to an area where I flew before: Gagelbos. This has different areas, one of them is near to Utrecht and has some picknick tables and a rope bridge. It is created to let the forest be enjoyed by people of the nearby Utrecht city area. In the forest, there are some old remains of a forgotten era: bunkers. These bunkers are not from the World War 2, but from much earlier, the era when the Netherlands plannend to defend the capital area by innudation, forts and bunkers: the so called Waterlinie.
The bunkers are unused for a very long time and inaccesible. They stand like large rocks of four meter high in the forest. I planned to photograph K. at a location in the forest, surrounded by trees, near a bunker and near a busy road, but invisible from this road. Forest areas near a road are seldom visited, and for a nude shoot it is good to have no visitors.
We walked into the area, I unpacked the drone, and learned K. to operate the drone. After joking that K. could model on top of the bunker, to my surprise K. agreed. Climbing on a 4 meter high structure is not easy, but with two tries, some directions from me and a lot of courage, K reached the top. She undressed, tossed me her clothing and lay down on top. From my viewpoint K was invisible, but the drone did his job and made some short films and many photo's. After a while, K sat on the edge of the bunker. The contrast between a beautifully curved nude model and the old concrete bunker was great. I tried to make a short film of K, starting with the drone 5 meters a 5 meter distance and 5 meter above K, and then fly backwards and up, to zoom out. The sight in my screen during this shot was great, until... I heared the sound of the drone crashing into a tree.
I had forgotten about the 30 meter high trees right behind me. The drone his the first branches at about 17 meters high, tried to break free but the propellors were obstructed, hit more and more branches while falling down, and finally got stuck at about 6 meters above the ground level, right above a ditch filled with water.
After the first shock I helped K. to descent from the bunker. We were able to locate the drone, we were able to estimate the height, and luckily we were able to lend a ladder at a nearby riding school.
I climbed five meters, tried to look confident while feeling both the risks of loosing the drone or falling from a ten meter ladder (not sure what was worse). And then I got it! When a quick test revealed that it still worked, I was a very happy man. K. left and she did not mention antything about me being deadly pale, which was kind. And it was the start of a productive cooperation.
Lessons learned: drone-crashes can make you do things you never dreamt of daring to do, never fly backwards without checking nearby trees, beautiful women can have a lot of courage.
To Do: Double check the drone for hidden problems during the next flights, replace the slightly damaged propellor. When a new crash occurs, do save the footage.