Take a drone’s eye view of Miami-Dade with new video series by the Miami Herald

“Miami by Air,” a new drone video series from the Miami Herald, doesn’t take readers far from home, but it offers a different perspective of our cities and neighborhoods from up high.

Since last July, a team of Herald visual journalists who are licensed drone pilots have spent dozens of hours flying drones high above Miami-Dade County to bring you a unique view of the communities we call home.

The team is comprised of visual journalists Matias J. Ocner, Emily Michot, Pedro Portal and Al Diaz, with help from Carl Juste.

Ocner, who got his drone license in 2018, said working on the project allowed him to reconnect to his Kendall roots.

“I grew up around [Kendall] all my life, and I wanted to be able to explore the neighborhood that I grew up in, but from the air,” Ocner said. “A lot of people think it’s a boring place.”

But photographing and recording with a drone presents more challenges than capturing events through a regular camera.

Flying a drone “requires coordination, making sure the drone is visible and it doesn’t go over the height limit” set by the Federal Aviation Administration, Ocner said.

“There’s always something you need to watch out for: flying birds, power lines, trees..,” said Diaz, a licensed drone pilot since 2018.

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This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM.