FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Our normal service area includes the Greater Houston metro area including Galveston, Baytown, Conroe, Tomball, Katy, and Richmond/Rosenberg. Generally speaking, it is a 50-mile radius of the Houston CBD. We also provide services beyond this local area, but additional flight costs are applied. We routinely travel to Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, the Rio Grande Valley, Beaumont, east Texas, and southwestern Louisiana.
The Positive Image participates in an international network of professional aerial photographers and can provide imagery for anywhere in the United States and some foreign countries. Letting us subcontract your site to one of our photographers helps to control costs while providing local control of the imagery and a level of service that you have come to expect from us.
Our insurance prohibits passengers during a photography flight!
Before the photographer visits the property, we will schedule a short interview with the client. Doing this interview we will discuss the intended purpose of the photography and how it will be presented. Based on the client needs and our experience, we will develop a general shot list for the photography session. We will also communicate with onsite management to coordinate the specific requirements of the session. The photographers trained eye will be the final arbitrator in determining the specific angles and subjects necessary to convey the intended message.
The Positive Image retains ownership rights to all of the images. We do however allow the original purchaser of the imagery almost unlimited usage rights of all images purchased. For a more detailed discussion of Copyright and Copyright Laws in the United States click here.
There is a lot of confusion about drones and what can be done with them. From the photographers perspective, a drone is just another tool that can be used to help tell a story. Drones, by regulation, are limited to operating in the airspace between the ground and 400 feet above the ground. This is a space that is difficult for traditional aircraft to operate in. From the customers perspective, the drone allows for low-level closeup photography that provides otherwise unobtainable images that can show great detail of a subject.
For a more detailed visualization of drones vs. manned aircraft, click here.
Aerial photography is extremely weather dependent. Safety is our primary concern. When weather conditions present an unsafe situation, we do not fly. Worldwide, aviation is also goverened by rules and regulations regarding the weather. In the United States, the FAA defines flight rules by the weather conditions that a pilot might encounter at any given time. When the FAA imposes these rules we are required to follow them. IFR conditions (Instrument Flight Rules) require following procedures that do not lend themselves to aerial photography. VFR conditions (Visual flight rules) are required for most aerial photography missions, but some VFR conditions are still not favorable of quality aerial photography. What seems like nice weather on the ground may not be suitable for quality aerials. Cloud cover and visibility are the most significant factors that effect aerial photography. Those nice white puffy clouds that look so pretty from the ground, cast shadows on the ground that give the image a very splotchy look. Low cloud ceilings can prevent us from obtaining the correct altitude to photograph a subject. Visibility can be effected by haze, rain, dust, smoke, and pollution to have serious effects on photography.
We try to select the best possible days for photography, but sometimes deadlines do not permit waiting for that perfect day. We do fly some missions on a “fly regardless” basis when deadlines can not be adjusted. They are flown with the customer understanding that conditions may not allow us to produce the best quality images. As an alternative, The Positive Image offers stock aerial images of many high interest areas that may provide a solution when conditions do not permit a custom flight.