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I was playing on my xbox 360 last night at about 8:15 with a mate over xbox live, chatting as you do. Through the blinds I noticed someone go down next doors drive, knock, get no answer and then walk towards our house. I said to my mate "someone is going to knock at the door in a sec" and sure enough, he did.
So I open the door, expecting to be greeted by a kleeneze magazine collector or a meter reader (why at 8:15pm I have no idea), instead there's this bloke in a duffel coat who starts waffling on about flying over last year and he'd called round last week.
At this point I'm like wha?
He goes on and I establish that he flew over our house last year in a helicopter, looking for houses that stood out and took some photos of our house and the adjoining houses. Out of his coat pocket he pulls out some 6x4 prints showing the houses, all in focus, framing not perfect, but I guess if you're hovering then you have issues anyway.
He was blabbering on about having a pentax medium format and how that ensured him the best possible quality and how he shot them with a 300mm lens. He never mentioned buying/selling the photos but he had at least 50-60 in his pocket of different houses so he was going door to door I presume trying to sell them.
He soon shut up when I told him I was also a photographer and rattled off some numbers to him, maybe my lack of enthusiasm towards his average pictures showed. I dunno. Ah yeah that was it - he said using his pentax medium format allowed him to blow the prints up really big, I told him I could blow up the prints from my 30d really big too. I think he knew he wasn't going to get a sale then.
I mean okay, some people like to have aerial pictures of their houses on their walls, if you're in a detached house or have really nice surroundings. I mean we've got a 40mph road to the front, rolling farmer's fields to the back but the houses themselves are just plain townhouses, no special features, just 6 of them in a row and I have to be honest, they look fairly plain to be honest, you can see them on google earth and its just 6 terraced houses. If you are driving down the road, its easy to drive past them and not notice them. Ours house certainly doesn't stand out, so its more likely that he's taken photos of EVERY house in the area and is knocking on EVERY door
(thats what I'd do to make people buy them).
So, I think he was selling them, but he never talked about prices, he mentioned something about blowing them up though. He was quite difficult to understand, he had a funny accent and a weird voice.
Anyway - the real reason for sharing this is I mean I guess fair play to the bloke for going door to door and trying to shift his photos, but why on earth did he have a load of loose photos in his pocket, all at 6x4? Does it really cost that much to get some 8x6's done at 39p each from photobox (even if you have to scan the negs in). At 6x4, an aerial photograph is pretty much useless, regardless of however much detail a medium format camera gives you. You can see bugger all on a 6x4 print. Have a load of 8x6 proofs, have one thats framed so you can show what you're actually selling, and not knock on people's doors at 8:15pm when I'm trying to play crackdown and blow things up on the xbox.
Some people
I dunno, since getting into photography my feelings towards things like that have changed, I know the helicopter ride won't have been cheap, but he'll at least break even if he charges what people usually charge for them. If I have an aerial photo up on the wall of our house, I want it to be a photo that either Sue or I took. Some of the stuff that people post up on here is fantastic and I wouldn't have a problem with having that on my wall either, its just it was a picture of the houses (that aren't a particularly nice subject anyway) and after seeing all of the great work on here I'm a bit jaded.
This time last year I might have been impressed, so I've decided it's all your fault :bonk:
So I open the door, expecting to be greeted by a kleeneze magazine collector or a meter reader (why at 8:15pm I have no idea), instead there's this bloke in a duffel coat who starts waffling on about flying over last year and he'd called round last week.
At this point I'm like wha?
He goes on and I establish that he flew over our house last year in a helicopter, looking for houses that stood out and took some photos of our house and the adjoining houses. Out of his coat pocket he pulls out some 6x4 prints showing the houses, all in focus, framing not perfect, but I guess if you're hovering then you have issues anyway.
He was blabbering on about having a pentax medium format and how that ensured him the best possible quality and how he shot them with a 300mm lens. He never mentioned buying/selling the photos but he had at least 50-60 in his pocket of different houses so he was going door to door I presume trying to sell them.
He soon shut up when I told him I was also a photographer and rattled off some numbers to him, maybe my lack of enthusiasm towards his average pictures showed. I dunno. Ah yeah that was it - he said using his pentax medium format allowed him to blow the prints up really big, I told him I could blow up the prints from my 30d really big too. I think he knew he wasn't going to get a sale then.
I mean okay, some people like to have aerial pictures of their houses on their walls, if you're in a detached house or have really nice surroundings. I mean we've got a 40mph road to the front, rolling farmer's fields to the back but the houses themselves are just plain townhouses, no special features, just 6 of them in a row and I have to be honest, they look fairly plain to be honest, you can see them on google earth and its just 6 terraced houses. If you are driving down the road, its easy to drive past them and not notice them. Ours house certainly doesn't stand out, so its more likely that he's taken photos of EVERY house in the area and is knocking on EVERY door
(thats what I'd do to make people buy them). So, I think he was selling them, but he never talked about prices, he mentioned something about blowing them up though. He was quite difficult to understand, he had a funny accent and a weird voice.
Anyway - the real reason for sharing this is I mean I guess fair play to the bloke for going door to door and trying to shift his photos, but why on earth did he have a load of loose photos in his pocket, all at 6x4? Does it really cost that much to get some 8x6's done at 39p each from photobox (even if you have to scan the negs in). At 6x4, an aerial photograph is pretty much useless, regardless of however much detail a medium format camera gives you. You can see bugger all on a 6x4 print. Have a load of 8x6 proofs, have one thats framed so you can show what you're actually selling, and not knock on people's doors at 8:15pm when I'm trying to play crackdown and blow things up on the xbox.
Some people
I dunno, since getting into photography my feelings towards things like that have changed, I know the helicopter ride won't have been cheap, but he'll at least break even if he charges what people usually charge for them. If I have an aerial photo up on the wall of our house, I want it to be a photo that either Sue or I took. Some of the stuff that people post up on here is fantastic and I wouldn't have a problem with having that on my wall either, its just it was a picture of the houses (that aren't a particularly nice subject anyway) and after seeing all of the great work on here I'm a bit jaded.
This time last year I might have been impressed, so I've decided it's all your fault
:bonk:
