Los Angeles is beautiful from above. Photographer Vincent Laforet knows it, the Olympic bid organizers know it and so does aerial videographer Ian Wood.
Our new favorite testament to LA's aerial appeal comes from Robert McIntosh's "Rise & Shine," which finds the photographer flying his drone-bound GoPro through Venice Beach. And when we say through, we mean it quite literally—watch the video below for a flight underneath the archways on Windward Avenue, below a park bench and through Mark di Suvero's sculpture "Declaration."
Rise & Shine from Robert McIntosh on Vimeo.
Shot around dawn and nearly devoid of people, the video manages to make the sometimes slummy Venice Boardwalk look like paradise. We'll also chalk that up to the music; if Brian Eno's "Deep Blue Day" can make a toilet seem serene in Trainspotting, then surely it can do the same for a SoCal beach.
It's not the first tightly choreographed drone video from McIntosh; his similarly dreamy "Santa Monica Airlines" includes a shot through the Santa Monica Pier's Ferris wheel. And lest you think McIntosh is just fooling us with some fancy editing work, he uploaded the unstabilized version of his deftly drone piloted Venice video.