Aerial photography and video in Totnes

Totnes is built along one line: a steep main street running straight up from the river to the motte of Totnes Castle at the top of the town, with a dense medieval and Elizabethan core of slate-hung and jettied buildings packed either side. From ground level the street is experienced one shopfront at a time; from above, the whole climb from river to castle reads as a single continuous shape, with the rolling South Hams farmland spreading out beyond the rooftops.

Further out, Bridgetown and Follaton carry the town's more recent housing, and the Dartington Hall estate sits just outside Totnes with its own parkland, gardens and historic buildings, a distinctly different kind of subject from the packed medieval centre a few minutes' flight away.

Totnes marks the tidal limit of the Dart, the point where the river stops being properly coastal and becomes an inland waterway, which gives the town a different character in an aerial shot to Dartmouth or Kingsbridge further down the same water: more bridge, more riverside path, less open estuary.

Estate agents selling the older Totnes properties, jettied Elizabethan frontages and Georgian and Victorian townhouses on the hill, are usually selling character and position on that single steep street, both of which are easier to show from above than from the pavement outside. A photograph that places a building against the castle and the river below it does more work than one taken square-on from across the road.

Wedding and events venues benefit even more directly. Dartington Hall's grounds are the kind of setting where an aerial photograph, showing the scale of the parkland and its relationship to the historic buildings, sells the venue in a way no ground shot of a single room or garden can. Totnes's reputation as a market town with a strong independent, small-business character also draws local producers and shops who want imagery of the town itself for their own marketing.

The Elizabethan and medieval buildings on the high street are timber-framed and jettied in a way that is unusual even for Devon, projecting further out at each storey as the street climbs, a detail that is properly difficult to read from the pavement below but obvious from a camera positioned above roof height.

Totnes is inland and reasonably sheltered compared with the coastal towns nearby, which in practice means more flyable days across the year and less dependence on picking a calm weather window. That makes it a straightforward town to plan a shoot around, with the castle, the river and the farmland beyond the rooftops all available on most bookings rather than only on the best days.

Because Totnes sits between Dartmouth and Newton Abbot, a shoot here often pairs naturally with one further down the Dart or out towards the coast, covering the tidal river from its limit at Totnes down to the sea in a single day if needed. It also sits within easy reach of Paignton and Ivybridge, widening that same-day radius further still.

Follaton and Bridgetown's newer estates sit at a lower, flatter level than the historic hill, giving a clear visual contrast in the same flight between the town's oldest and newest housing.