Thirroul photographer has got an impressive resume. Just consider this li'l list of milestones: he's been in John Travolta's aircraft, shaken hands with the Pope, learned how to make tea with Sam Twining, and how to make a scent with Guerlain in Paris. All of the above, and more, occurred while on the job.

Chris recently caught on to the drone explosion, strapping his expensive rig to the underside of a miniature heli and twiddling his thumbs for flight. He's started adopting it in his work but is also finding enjoyment in still photos, not least because the best conditions to shoot are long after the sun has risen.

Swellnet: How long have you been using a drone to shoot photos?
Chris Duczynski: About two years now and only one stack when the auto 'return to home' program was activated by a battery running low. There was unfortunately a quite large office building between where I started and where the drone was and it didn't clear the top of it. Otherwise, incident free.

Did you experiment with different angles before drones came along?
I've photographed and shot video for around thirty years. I've tried different lenses, focal lengths and special effects with moderate success. It's the content that makes the shot and how you compose and manipulate the image. I've shot from choppers as well, but the cost and height restriction limited what I wanted to do, although the angle from up high was always really different and abstract. That's what made me look at drones.

What sort of work were you doing prior to the drone explosion?
I've worked for my own media production company, malibumedia, shooting ads, promos and corporates for the past twelve years. Before that, I had a dream job working for Qantas for sixteen years, flying around the world, filming their destinations and meeting some amazing people like Nelson Mandela and John Travolta. I was basically thinking the whole time that I'd lucked out and it would end soon - but I had a good run and learnt heaps of stuff on the way.

What drone do you use?
I still use my DJI Phantom 2 with a GoPro Hero4 Black on a H4-3D Zenmuse gimbal for stability. I can program the GoPro to take video and stills simultaneuosly at reasonably good resolution. I can shoot up to 4K video while shooting a still every 2,5, or 10 seconds. I love the randomness of the stills function, but quite often you'll miss a vital moment, but then you'll get something which will surprise you - a colour in the seabed, a wave breaking with sunlight on it, or a surfer just pushing through the back of a big set with foam and froth fizzing around.

If I can get one or two good shots a session I'm happy. The best thing about a drone is you can fly at just a metre above the subject or 100 metres above them - its like having a giant crane you can push around anywhere you want. 

You tend to hone in on 'moments' - imagery from the beach or ocean that features surfers but isn't typical surfing action. What attracts you to those shots?
I'm more interested in the abstract nature of surfing. The colour, the light, the churn of the wave in the sand. Sometimes when people see the shot from above, they don't get it...'Why is that surfer paddling across a green seabed as I'm looking straight down on them? WTF is going on?'

I love sharing with them what they're seeing. Like a creek running into the sea with a surfer walking along it, or the brilliant colours left behind when a heavy wave churns the weed and sand and there's a surfer coming out of a duckdive amongst it. I use the surfers as a reference point so that it helps to add reality to the abstractness of a moment or image. 

Is there an ideal day to shoot? 
Sunny, midday, clear water with rocks and weeds beneath the surfer. Which is great cause I've never been a morning person, no matter how much coffee I have. Also, with a late start there's no shadows and very little separation between the surfers and what's underneath - sometimes it looks like a painting and thats when I'm most stoked with the image.

I've had some beautiful shots with shadows at sunrise and sunset, but there's so many incredibly beautiful shots of waves and surfers at that time of day shot by pros, that I really wanted to do something different. 

And its always a bit of relief when you land the drone after its been a couple of hundred metres away over the ocean. I've lost sight of it a few times and ended going the wrong way with the controller, but so far, she's always come back and we remain on speaking terms.