Show Home Photography: Coordinating Stills, Aerial and Video
Show home photography Hawke's Bay clients need rarely comes down to just a camera and a few rooms. When Jennian Homes HB asked me to cover their new show home at the Iona development in Havelock North, the brief was bigger than that from the start. It meant photographing the launch event while the property was awaiting only a louvre canopy over the deck, followed by still imagery, aerial photography and video once the build was fully finished, all needing to work together as one package rather than separate jobs.
Here's how that actually came together.
Why a Multi-Format Shoot Needs a Coordinator, Not Just a Photographer
Once a project has more than one format in play, someone has to think about how the pieces fit before anyone picks up a camera. A twilight exterior shot depends on a narrow window either side of sunset, while drone footage needs calm, stable conditions that don't always line up with the best light for stills. Interior stills need the rooms styled and settled, while video needs movement and life in the same spaces.
Running all of that on one project means sequencing it properly, deciding what gets shot when, what waits for the right light, and where the handoffs happen between formats. That planning is most of the job before a single frame is captured.
Bringing in Ben Firman for Aerial and Video
For the aerial and video side of this project, I brought in Ben Firman from Engage Media. Drone work and video are their own craft, and I stick to my knitting. I specialise in stills, and I'd rather bring in someone who works in aerial and video at a high level every day than stretch myself thin trying to cover every format.
There's a health and safety reason to split the roles too. Flying a drone needs someone's full attention on the sky and the aircraft, not half an eye on it while also directing a shoot on the ground. Keeping those roles separate means Ben can fly properly, watching for other aircraft, wind changes and anyone moving into the flight path, while I focus on art directing the shots themselves. It's a safer way to run the day, and it produces better results in both formats.
Photographing the Launch Event on the Same Project
The launch event actually came first. Jennian Homes HB held the evening gathering, friends, suppliers and invited guests, with only a louvre canopy over the deck still to be installed, ahead of the marketing stills and aerial work that followed once the build was fully finished.
Event photography calls for a different pace entirely to architectural work. It's deliberate and controlled when I'm shooting the finished stills, but the event itself meant staying alert to genuine moments while people were moving through the space, guests arriving, conversations happening, the property being experienced ahead of that final piece being completed. Running both stages on the same project meant shifting gears without losing the thread of what the imagery needed to achieve overall.
What the Client Walked Away With
By the end of the project, Jennian Homes HB had fifty-five external, internal and aerial still images from the show home itself, seventy-five further images from the launch event, and Ben's video footage edited into a promotional reel. All stills were delivered in both high and web resolution, ready for print and digital use straight away.
That range matters. A single-purpose photoshoot gives a client one type of asset. A coordinated project like this gives them a full library, stills for the website, aerial for context and scale, video for the reel, and event photography that captures the human side of the launch, all pulling in the same direction.
