If this is of interest, you might also like to see some of my Pool Pics by Pole. 

Pole photography allows one to create a different kind of image. I've been doing pole shots for a couple of years now, and for those who are interested in this neat area, I have a few suggestions based on experience. Just because you have a tool in the toolbox doesn't mean that you always want to use it. Below are two examples of the actual brochure covers so that you can see the kind of effect that you can get using pole photography. I usually try to take my photos as portrait/vertical pictures so that I can print them on the front of a brochure. So, let me try to explore the situations when these aerial photographs worked well and when they did not.

The above photo was taken from about 20 ft off the ground and about 40 ft back from that nice tree. If I had taken this picture from the ground, the tree would have obstructed the house (no way around that) and the house would have obstructed the nice setting. The pole picture solved both problems and gave a million dollar look to this half million dollar home.

Situations to use pole photography

• Estate-like settings, e.g., a couple of acres. In this situation, you can do helicopter or plane photography too, and that may be more appropriate in order to get a lot of pictures or pictures that require a high elevation (e.g., the picture of the house with the canyon).
• Less expensive homes with lovely settings - The reason why you want to use aerial photos is because by getting the camera up, you can see what is behind the home. If you have hills, golf course, etc., you will be able to see over the house to the back. We had one home where the Ocean was only 300 yards away, but you could not see the ocean from the house. By getting the camera higher than the house, we were able to take a picture of the house that also showed the proximity of the ocean.
• Tall homes - Even if you don't necessarily have a great setting, simply getting the camera up to 10 or 12 feet allows you to take the picture of the home with less distortion. If a home is 15 or 30 feet high, you will be closer to the center point and the photo can look more balanced.
• Community spaces like pools and tennis courts - Photos of pools look really great because you see more of the water and the light reflecting around the pool is great. Photos of tennis courts become possible even if there is a 10 foot high fence around the court; shoot the court from one of the corners and it will look great.
• Impossible-to-take photos due to obstructions - We had a home with beautiful flowers about 30 feet in front of the home. Unfortunately, the yard then plummeted down a hill. The only way to get the photo of the flowers in front of the home was to be suspended in mid-air, and hence the need for the pole. Here's the final photo as it went on the brochure cover:

• As Lee Jinks points out in his excellent article about his rig, you can use these pole rigs to take pictures of the roof if you need to show the new shingles.

The above picture was taken from about 35-38ft in order to get above the roof line so that I could show the pretty ocean view that was seen from the master bedroom. I could not have taken this picture any other way as a helicopter shoot could never have gotten a 15 degree angle down instead it would have been 45-60 degrees down due to airspace height (helicopters can't go below 500ft).

Situations NOT to use pole photography

• Homes that have unattractive settings behind the home. For example, if there is construction going on behind the home, you probably do not want to show the earthmovers in the picture of the home. Also, if the home has 750,000 volt powerlines behind it (the really big towers), you probably do not want to use an aerial picture because doing so will accentuate the power lines by making them so visible.
• Greenspaces - Technically, it's OK to use a pole, but the problem is that without a frame of reference (e.g., a house), trees and greenspace are hard to gauge. It isn't obvious whether you are 3 feet off the ground or 30 feet. I have not found pole photography to produce usable images when the subject is just greenspace.
• High-density homes - Having an aerial photo will bring dramatic attention to the high density of the homes.

Please note that there are situations where you just don't want to use a pole:

• Electrical lines nearby
• Very high winds (thus making the taking of pictures difficult)

If you can think of other situations where pole photography is or is not warranted, please leave a comment.

Margaret Hokkanen, Carlsbad Real Estate