Move Over, Selfies. 'Dronies' Are Where It's At

Renee Lusano takes selfies with her drone in exotic locations all over the world.
Renee Lusano with Furby 2
Processed with VSCOcam with c1 presetTimony Siobhan

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Whatever you call them, they're short videos of her travels that the illustrator and designer posts to Instagram. Each begins with a close-up of the globetrotter waving happily as the camera pulls back to capture a dramatic locale. Up and up it goes, rising ever higher until Lusano slips out of sight, making the video a celebration of place, not self. "I don’t like to take or share ordinary, hand-held selfies." Lusano says. "I like creating photo and video collections that I can share with my friends and family, that they’ll really enjoy—not just cell phone snapshots that I’ll back up to a hard drive after a trip and never look at again."

Lusano made her first dronie last year during a trip to Belize. While exploring Mayan ruins, she thought sending her GoPro-equipped drone aloft for a wider view would be the best way to document the moment. "It seemed like the perfect place for a shot that would show me sitting casually before zooming out to reveal that Holy shit I’m on top of a giant pyramid!" she says.

She's gone through four drones, each named Furby after the owl-like robot toys she loved as a kid. "It was the best fit for the personality I wanted mine to have," she says. Drones are fragile, and she's been tough on them. Lusano once brought Furby 2—a DJI Phantom 2—down into the water after misjudging her location. It survived the swim, but it met its maker a few weeks later when its battery died during a flight from Bixby Creek Bridge in Big Sur, California.

Lusano has visited eight countries and hopes to check our Russia with Furby 4, a DJI Phantom 3. It's a bit of a hassle lugging a backpack full of gear and batteries through airports, onto trains, and up mountainsides, but she's gotten the hang of it. "It's a serious labor of love," she says.

Her videos elicit delight, awe, and, if you're honest, some serious vacation envy. But Lusano wants to inspire you, and is quick to note that one need not visit Easter Island or Porto Ercole to make amazing photos. Some of her favorite dronies have been taken in places like a train yard in Michigan or on a lake in Wisconsin. "It's not always the most epic locations in the world where a beautiful picture reveals itself from above," she says.

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