Integration and differentiation: comparison of photography behaviors using unmanned aerial vehicle data in China and Europe

Abstract

The continuous improvement in the design and manufacture of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has enabled them to assist humans in aerial tasks. At present, UAVs are not only used for environmental data collection, but also used by photographers to take photos. As the popularity of consumer UAVs rises, an increasing number of tourists are transitioning from the traditional perspectives of mobile phone and hand-held camera photography to the aerial perspective of UAV photography. Therefore this study examines UAV photos and related data uploaded by photographers within China and Europe to the UAV forum SkyPixel by using cloud-based data from Microsoft Azure vision, and sentiment, social network and spatial analyses. In addition, this paper also investigates the commonalities and differences between the behaviors and preferences of photographers who utilize UAV photography recreationally. The results indicate that the core content of UAV photography revolves around three major themes: natural landscapes, destination transportation facilities, and the daily behaviors of people. However, photographers in China mainly exhibit neutral emotions, while European photographers display mostly positive emotions. Hot spots are concentrated in mature tourist areas, especially top destinations near waterbodies. This study fosters a new understanding of the emerging group of UAV users.