Meet BG Boyd of Tucson

Today we’d like to introduce you to BG Boyd.

Hi BG, We appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I moved to Arizona from upstate NY in 2004 after graduating with a BS in Computer Science. I started taking photography a little more seriously around 2010 and focused on wildlife and landscapes. Before Covid hit, I checked out drones and started messing around with them. However, there are only so many times you can take aerial photos of the desert before all the photos start to look the same. Then, during COVID-19, when everything was shutting down, I tried to devise an idea to keep me busy that wasn’t repeatedly taking the same photos of the desert. I merged aerial photography and coding skills with my appreciation of the arts to create a website, tucsonazmurals.com. I wrote the website from the ground up myself and provided 99% of the photos and videos of the murals, most of which were all taken via drone.

It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My biggest obstacle is trees; I may have yet to have a drone that lives in one now. I’m not a huge fan of power and utility lines, either.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might need to be more familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
Professionally, I work in software. As a hobby, I started photographing wildlife and landscapes. I tried astrophotography for a bit, but it started feeling too much like work and wasn’t fun, so I gave it up. Then I started getting into drone photography, which was and is still fun for me and is primarily what I do now. When Covid hit, I sought ideas, preferably something no one had done before. I came up with the idea of photographing some of these beautiful, giant murals around town from a different angle from above. I’ve been doing that for a few years and worked personally with a few of the muralists around town. I want to say that I am known for doing that, which is my specialization. Last year, I even experimented and released a “Murals” version of my yearly photography calendar, and there was enough interest that I have also started working on one for 2024. It has yet to be ready, but some information is on my website: https://bgboydphoto.com/calendar.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those just starting.
Find something you enjoy and do it. Suppose it feels like work and becomes less fun; stop doing it. If it happens to be drone-related, start saving up; new stuff comes out every quarter and is hard to keep up with. Also, get your Part 107; you even get a cool card from the FAA to keep in your wallet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bgboydphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bgboydphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bgboydphoto/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bgboydphoto/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/bgboydphoto
• Other: https://tucsonazmurals.com

Image Credits
Photos are all mine. The mural with the 3 women is called “The Three Sisters” and is by Ruben Urrea Moreno. The mural painted on all the street signs is called “Fragments of Fortitude” by Jessica Gonzales Please be sure to note the artists in the article.