Aerial Photography and Viedography

Aerial Photography

Aerial photos of your property can’t fail to be impressive right? It’s so different and gives a great idea of the layout.

However there are a few traps that you can fall into when commissioning this kind of work.

Ask yourself: "Is your property situated in an area that lends itself to aerial shots?"

By their very nature, aerial shots are wide and take in a lot of the surrounding area, so you’ll need to think about a few things:

• Remember that the whole of the outside area will be in the shot, so you’ll need to tidy and remove any vehicles from the driveway.

• Do you have neighbours near by? What is the state of their property? I recently shot a converted horse box that looked, in the photos, like it was all on it’s own in the middle of no-where. In fact it was in a paddock at the back of the owners house and the neighbouring farm was building a large extension. The owner requested that I take some aerial shots but there was no way of doing so without showing either the building site just over the hedge or the owner’s house just down the end of the field. The areal shots would have ruined the image they were trying to convey.

• Are you situated close to a main road or railway track? In the past I have shot a beautiful modern barn conversion with bi-fold doors and garden that backs out straight on to the Sussex South Downs with amazing views. However on the other side of the house was a big fence another row of houses, a railway line and then the A27. So there was no way of getting an aerial shot of the back of the house with the South Downs in the background due to the fence. If I’d shot it from the front, you would see how close the trains and traffic were due to the height.

• Time of year is also a consideration. It’s always nice to have summery shots, however if your property is situated under the canopy of large trees it’s probably not possible to get a shot in the middle of the summer due to not being able to see it for the trees. You may have to wait until the winter when there are no leaves. Winter sunshine can also look lovely.

The do's and don'ts of using video to enhance property marketing...

Another tempting element to marketing your property is video. It can look amazing and convey so much atmosphere when done well. However there are some definite things to avoid when putting a video together.

• When preparing for a video shoot it's even more important to ensure that your property is clean, tidy and well staged. It’s not as easy to hide things from a moving camera and if you accidentally leave something in shot that you don’t want to be there it can’t just be photoshopped out in post production.

• Shooting a usable promotional video for yourself is not an easy thing to do well. It demands a lot of expensive equipment to get smooth shots. However with the advent of professional stills cameras having the capability to shoot 4K video there are many more professionals who can supply video because stills photographers are now branching out into moving image. Having said that, it is possible to take short promotional videos on your phone for social media updates. These don’t need to look too professional as long as your content is fun, engaging and not trying to show off absolutely everything.

• Keep it short! When looking through promotional videos for businesses, I have seen a vast array of quality. Videos need to be short and punchy. Any longer than 1.5 minutes is too long and you’d be well advised to keep it down to a minute in length. Attention spans are much shorter than you think. There is a reason Instagram & TikTok have a one minute limit. I have, in the past, seen videos on websites that go on for 10 minutes or more. No one is going to sit and watch something that length! Having a video that size on your website is not only pointless but can slow the sites loading speed, which means that less people will wait for your site to load. If you have a large property with a lot of amenities and features there is no reason why you can’t have separate short videos showing each of the selling points. These also double up as quality content for social media.

• Editing is so important. The key to keeping a video short and punchy is in the editing. Make sure you take a good look at videographers show reels. Some could shoot beautiful footage, but if the editing is no good then the video will drag. If you find yourself losing interest while watching it, your potential customers will too.

• Include people in your videos! Endless pans of empty rooms, no matter how beautiful they are, can only hold your attention for so long. As soon as you include people enjoying the place then the video will come to life and be so much more interesting. If you can include a story line for your video, even better.

• Show a day in the life of a family enjoying the facilities. Maybe cooking a family meal or going for a walk in the surrounding area. Or a couple on a romantic get away snuggling up on the sofa with a glass of wine or relaxing in the hot tub. As soon as you put a narrative into your video you will help potential customers will relate and aspire to staying. As soon as you have done that then you have their attention.