Almost every real estate photo and drone shoot in New Mexico has its challenges. And then sometimes a property has pretty much every challenge possible! That is the case with this home in Placitas, New Mexico being listed by Mark & Susan Ryerson. The first challenge as you can see from the above photo is that the front of the house is largely blocked by trees and it is up on a hill, so getting a direct front view shot was not really possible, not even with the drone. The interior had unique architecture, but somewhat small rooms with large furniture in them. Even using a 15mm lens I had to really search for angles I liked for the living room in particular. Then flying the drone itself, I never had a signal issue between the remote control and the drone until this flight, likely due to the massive power lines right behind the house, which also prevented flying from that direction. Then there was wind from being so close to the mountains and the aforementioned trees all around the house! Overall, this was one of the most challenging real estate shoots and drone flights I have ever done in the Albuquerque area. Thank you to Mark & Susan for their great help as they always provide on this shoot and flight!
On a recent return to Rio Rancho, New Mexico for a rural land real estate shoot for Hemingway Land, I found the property to be rather sand dune like in places. New Mexico is a high desert environment, not the typical sandy desert many may picture when hearing the word desert. There are places that are kind of sandy, like this one where you can leave prints, or paw prints, like the ones you can see in the above photo from my dog Kiki who joined me on this desert real estate shoot.
Out in rural Rio Rancho on assignment for a new local real estate client, Mike Mellos, flying my DJI Mavic Pro drone over a large rural land property with great views of the Sandia Mountains. Mike wanted me to show the large road frontage of the property as well as the sloping of the land beyond the property to indicate nothing could be built that will block those wonderful mountain views.
Back out in Belen, New Mexico on yet another rural land real estate assignment for Hemingway Land Company, I did not expect to find this view. I have been to this area many times and the land is flat and desolate. However, this time the property was much further south and west than I had been before and a short walk from the property itself revealed this dramatic landscape. Mesas jut out and then expand into a valley that goes all the way to a distant mountain. All of this combines for a fantastic sunset view. Not a bad place to work for an evening!
In the past few months I have made several trips to rural Belen, New Mexico for rural land real estate photo shoots, but only photos. This time the client, Hemingway Land Company, also wanted drone video of this 5-acre property. This area does not have a lot of interest topographically, so the challenge was to fly cinematically over mostly desolate land. At the end I found an arroyo to fly over in one of my most complex flights yet. Then I finished with finding a few trees before the final sunset shot.
Going from the west side to the east side of the Sandia Mountains brings a dramatic change in scenery, and lifestyle. Which would you prefer? The city sprawl of the westside or the wide open forests of the east side? Albuquerque is on the west side, and numerous small villages are on the east side. A rural land real estatedrone video assignment took me to the east side recently and I could not help but think just how much of a divide the mountains are. Living on 22 acres of forested land would be very peaceful. Driving over 30 minutes to go see a movie, not so convenient. I guess the ideal is to have both!
Just outside of Silver City, New Mexico sits this expansive rural land real estate property that I was sent to make a 4K drone video of, as well as aerial and still photos for Hemingway Land. This was one of the easiest rural land properties to access by vehicle, but one of the hardest to traverse by foot due to abundance of tall grass and the rolling topography of the property. I did so much up and down walking that it closed the exercise ring on my Apple Watch! This drone video ends with one of my favorite sunset shots of its kind. The light was soft and I slowly flew to the right just letting the setting sun linger in the frame.
