Considerations when choosing an aerial photographic supplier – Deadlines to meet?

When sourcing a supplier for your aerial photographic needs you must ensure that you make your deadlines clear to the company. If an aerial photographic company has a large amount of work to complete and knows that it will be unable to provide the necessary service then they should advise you that they will be unlikely to meet the deadline.

One of the largest problems in the UK is the weather. The weather will not only affect the operation from an aviation perspective, but also and to a greater extent from a photographic perspective. This is the most likely reason for an aerial photographic company to miss a deadline! Although a supplier can’t change the weather they must be able to react quickly, having full time professional pilots and their own aircraft is one way of achieving this.

The type of aerial photography required will also dictate the level of influence the weather has. For example oblique aerial photography of a large area will require good horizontal visibility, usually above 10 kilometres. However, if it is event aerial photography then the work will normally be completed providing the weather minima is above the pilots and aircrafts flying minima. Often large events will be over several days so the supplier should carefully select the day when the weather is at its best to enable the best event photography to be completed.

When a deadline is close it is of up most important to ensure good communication between the supplier and client. It may be possible for the client to accept photography in not perfect conditions, e.g. with cloud shadow. If this is the case then there will be more chance of the supplier meeting the deadline and more chance of a satisfied customer. Construction photography is one area where this maybe possible. The construction industry often uses progress photography to show a large developments taking shape and therefore the timing tends to be more important than perfect conditions/

Keith McGregor is a partner of Strawberrysoup, a web design agency with offices in Chichester and Bournemouth. Strawberrysoup specialise in creative web design, content managed websites, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and graphic design