Spying on the enemy, delivering your shopping and making great photographs: the rise of the drone

First recorded military use was in 1849, when Austria used 200 unmanned bomb-filled balloons against northern Italian city of Venice

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Andy Yeung’s image of Whampoa Garden won second prize in the “Cities” category of the 2017 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year contest. Photo: Andy Yeung

Published: 4:01pm, 16 Sep 2017Updated: 2:30pm, 25 Sep 2017

Hong Kong photographer Andy Yeung dug into his bag of technological tricks when he won second prize in a National Geographic travel photography competition in August.

His dramatic image is a bird’s-eye view of Whampoa Garden housing estate in Hung Hom, which the 32-year-old likened to the labyrinthine Kowloon Walled City he saw being torn down as a child. The photograph was part of an extensive series of shots taken using a drone: the latest tool used by snappers to capture the world from a fresh perspective.

Photo-sharing community Dronestagram, and competitions such as the annual International Drone Photography Contest and NYC Drone Film Festival, give individuals a chance to showcase their talent.

A drone shot of San Po Kong in Kowloon from Andy Yeung’s series on overcrowded urban living. Photo: Andy Yeung

But drones are not a new phenomenon and they were not originally intended as a photographer’s aid.

The first recorded military use of a drone was in 1849, when Austria used 200 unmanned bomb-filled balloons against the northern Italian city of Venice. In the first world war, they were used for aerial surveillance, and in the second world war to fly attack missions, and detonate bombs.

Still drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), are used for military purposes. The Raven is the world’s most widely used military UAV with about 20,000 units deployed around the world.