We recently connected with Dan Bledsoe and have shared our conversation below.
Dan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?
I’ve always been interested in flight. When I was a kid, my dad had his pilot’s license for small, single propeller planes and one of my earliest memories with him was he took me up in a plane and we did a few ‘touch and go’ landings. We also spent countless hours playing an early version of Microsoft Flight Simulator back in the days of 4 color graphics.
Fast forward to adulthood and the company I work for needed content for a newsletter they published for a section about employee hobbies outside of work. I helped out by making a short video having fun in a muscle car I like to drive on the weekend, and one of my friends brought his drone to get a unique perspective for parts of the video.
In 2021 when I was working fully remote, I was looking for a new hobby and decided to get a starter drone. I learned how to fly it, and started taking aerial photos of as many things as I could around Frisco and I was hooked. I decided to get my drone pilot’s license, which gives me the ability to get paid to fly, and comes with certain other perks such as being able to fly in places you wouldn’t otherwise be able to without being a licensed pilot.
Dan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
After getting my part 107 (drone pilot’s license) I worked with a drone coach to improve the quality of my footage and learned strategies from someone who already had a successful drone business.
While I specialize in getting footage at car shows, I can do drone photos, videos, and timelapses of just about anything, while flying safely.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I started out doing a few small projects for a childhood friend – he has a company that was building a swimming pool so I did progress photos for him. Outside of that, when I tried to get drone footage for people, I wasn’t getting a lot of responses and it would have been easy to get discouraged and give up.
Instead, I continued to fly and improve and build a portfolio that demonstrated what I can do with a drone. My turning point was when I talked to the owners at Halo Pizzeria and partnered with them to get drone footage at their monthly ‘Rides and Pies’ car show. This led to building some credibility and opportunities to fly at other local car shows.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
While I had taken a few classes on drone photography and videography, I had no idea that drone coaching even existed until a drone coach found me on Instagram and I signed up for his coaching program. It was invaluable learning strategies that worked for him, and getting feedback from somebody more experienced that helped me improve the quality of my footage much faster than I could have ever done on my own.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://texasdroneshark.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/texas_drone_shark/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@texasdroneshark5562?si=E18NvlzpEeFZlPVJ
