Same September morning as the first-light frame, but pointed down instead of out. Most of this picture is water — the glacial flour that makes Pukaki that impossible teal reads almost black before the sun reaches it, and the range gets squeezed into a thin lit band along the top. I flew the drone lower and kept cutting sky until the lake stopped being a foreground and became the subject. Winter, no wind, nine minutes of battery to get it done.

Pukaki, Before the Wind
Lake Pukaki, New Zealand · September 2020
DJI Mavic Air 2, 5 millimetres, f 2.8, 1/15 of a second, ISO 200