Lior Patel: The Drone Photographer who Spied on Sheep from Above

Voices in Wool with Clara Parkes

Today's voice in wool never set out to be a voice in wool. In fact, he doesn't say a word about wool at all. His interest—and quite an infectious one at that—is in the sheep themselves, how they move and navigate both the natural terrain and one another.
In this episode, Clara talks with Lior Patel, a 42-year-old professional drone photographer from Haifa, Israel, who spent seven months observing a megaflock of more than 1,000 sheep from the sky. His time-lapse video of the flock in motion, which he threw up on social media just for a few photographer friends, has become a viral sensation.
Clara finds out what drove him to the project in the first place. Why sheep? What did he learn from them? And what can we learn from them too?
Their conversation blossoms into a much bigger discussion about life itself—about keeping balance and perspective and holding onto the creative spark when turning one's passion into one's profession. They also talk about the fleeting nature of Internet "stardom," about how he's using the publicity to bring more attention to farmers, and about the opportunities that this video has brought him—and why he turned down a chance to profit financially from the project.

Along the way, Lior shares some uncanny observations about sheep as a collective society, and how much we can learn from them.

Find Lior Patel on Instagram at instagram.com/liorpatel
View his other drone work on his website, Bravo Zulu Aerials
For a full transcript, go to thewoolchannel.com/voices-s1-e2
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