Aerial drone photography has become popular throughout the first decade of the 21st century, with the technology getting ever more affordable and easy-to-use. It is employed for a variety of goals, ranging from military and surveillance tasks to the so-called drone and citizen journalism, from sports coverage to artistic usages and even product delivery. In the present article I analyse the usage of aerial drone photography as a means to monitor, document and survey political protest movements, taking the Bulgarian #resign movement as a case study. After a short sketch of the Bulgarian protest movement of the year 2013, which has received less coverage in European and international media and academia than the comparable events in Russia 2011-2012 or the Euro-Maidan in Ukraine 2013-2014, the case study explores a sample of protest videos, focusing on their artistic composition which combines a “bird’s perspective” with the specific photographic technique of the fisheye lens distortion effect. My argument is, that aerial drone photography as a means to document protest movements evolves from a pragmatic tool of alternative informational footage to an instrument for shaping visually the self-perception of the protesting crowd.
Language of contribution: English