Originally shared on Instagram on November 19, 2025. Photography and story by Mark Middleton.
In 2024 I decided to buy a smaller drone — the kind you must use in Europe if you want to fly legally. The weight has to be under 249 grams, which is a shift for someone who normally shoots with a heavier, more powerful system in the States.
My first trip using this new drone was to Portugal in February 2024, when I traveled across the country with our real estate association. We covered a lot of ground — Lisbon, Porto, the coast, the countryside — but Évora was one of the places that stayed with me.
This photograph is of the Sé de Évora, the great medieval cathedral that rises above the red-tiled rooftops of the old city. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, it has watched nearly 800 years of human history pass beneath it. After having spent time wandering around this incredible cathedral, then standing on the rooftop and hovering just above it with the drone, you can feel the centuries layered in the stone.
I loved photographing the architecture of this part of the world — the way the old and the new exist together, the way the light moves across the rooftops, and how every street feels like a story. This view connects you to hundreds of years of history in an instant.
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