Human 100 Carolina Beach Centennial Aerial Shoot

On May 3rd, 2025, more than 500 people gathered on the sand at Carolina Beach to spell out "100" — a drone aerial photo commemorating the Carolina Beach Centennial. This video is the behind-the-scenes look at that shoot, from the drone's perspective above the crowd.

Carolina Beach was incorporated in 1925, making 2025 its hundredth year. The centennial celebration ran across a full year of events, but the Human 100 photo was the one that required the most coordination. Getting 500+ people to stand in the right place on a beach, in formation, while a drone circles overhead at the right altitude to read the "100" clearly, is a logistics problem as much as a photography one.

What you're seeing in the video is the drone pulling up from the crowd to the aerial position where the "100" becomes readable. The sun is behind the crowd, throwing long shadows down the beach and lighting up the surf behind the formation. The beachfront is visible in every direction — hotels, the boardwalk, dunes, beach access paths — which gives the photo a sense of place. You can see exactly where this happened and how many people showed up.

The final photo is viewable with zoom controls at cb100.info/human-100-aerial-beach-photo, where you can zoom in far enough to see individual participants. That page also has the full list of everyone who showed up and stood in the formation.

We've been shooting aerial beach photography at Carolina Beach since 2018 — real estate, VR tours, events, and structural documentation. The Human 100 shoot is one of the largest single-group aerial photos we've done on the Cape Fear coast.