Aerial photography and video in Salcombe

Salcombe is built almost entirely on a slope, houses stacked up from the water in tiers, so that from ground level most of the town is only ever seen in slices between buildings. From above, the whole hillside opens out at once: the harbour full of moorings, the estuary mouth, and Bolt Head's cliffs closing the view to the west. It is a town that feels built to be seen from a height nobody standing in the street can reach.

The housing stock is unusually varied for a small Devon town: Victorian and Edwardian villas on the upper slopes, a dense old core close to the harbour, and a significant number of contemporary architect-designed houses with flat roofs, large glazing and roof terraces built to take in the view. Those newer houses in particular are arranged around a view that a street-level photograph cannot show at all, which is exactly what an aerial shot is for.

Salcombe is first and foremost a yachting town, and the water is rarely still: moorings packed with boats, dinghies crossing the harbour, and sailing traffic that gives an aerial shot of the water itself as much interest as the houses stacked above it.

Salcombe carries some of the highest property values in the South Hams, and estate agents selling the contemporary houses on the hillside are selling the view as much as the building. An aerial photograph is often the only way to show a terrace looking out over the estuary to Bolt Head, or to show how a house on the slope relates to the water below it, in a way buyers can actually understand before they visit.

The harbour itself, with its sailing activity and moorings, and the coastline out towards North Sands and South Sands, also draws interest from hotels, holiday-let operators and attractions along the water who want imagery that shows the setting rather than just the building. Overbeck's, on the headland above the town, is the kind of coastal property whose garden and setting reads far better from above than from its own paths.

A large share of the housing on the upper slopes is second homes rather than full-time residence, which shifts what estate agents and letting agents need from a photograph: less about a school run or a daily commute, more about how a stay or an investment feels, and an aerial view of the harbour setting does more to sell that feeling than a floor plan ever could.

Salcombe sits open to the south, with salt-laden wind and driving rain arriving with little warning off the sea. Contemporary flat-roofed houses and glazed terraces look their best in still, clear conditions, so a shoot here is planned around a calm weather window rather than a fixed date, watching the forecast in the days before rather than booking blind.

When conditions are right, the light off the water in the early morning or evening, low and coming across the harbour, is what turns a competent photograph into one that actually sells a house or a stay.

Bolt Head to the west also means the town loses direct sun earlier than towns further up the estuary in the depths of winter, so late-afternoon bookings in December and January are planned around that rather than against it.