Aerial photography and video in Brixham

Brixham's whole town is shaped by its harbour. Fishermen's cottages, many rendered and painted in bright colours, are packed tightly onto the steep slopes that ring the water, with Victorian terraces above them and newer housing pushed further up the hill or out towards Churston. From above, the effect is closer to an amphitheatre than a seafront: the harbour sits at the bottom of a bowl with the town rising on every side of it, rather than a single row of buildings facing the sea.

East of the harbour, Berry Head is an entirely different landscape: a limestone headland and national nature reserve standing well above the water, with sheer cliffs on its seaward side and open grassland on top. It has nothing in common with the packed streets of the harbour town along the coast, and the two make a strong contrast within a single booking, the tight, colourful bowl of cottages against the open, empty headland.

The harbour is a working fishing port known nationally for the value of its catch, so seafood businesses, the fish market and boat operators want images built around the working fleet, the market stalls and the quay, proof of the industry rather than a resort backdrop. The Golden Hind replica moored in the harbour is its own attraction and photographs well as a single subject against the wider harbour scene for tourism marketing.

Estate agents selling the harbourside cottages are working with some of the most visually distinctive housing stock on this coast, and an aerial shot that shows a cottage's position on the bowl relative to the harbour below does more for a sale than a doorstep photograph ever could on streets this steep and this tightly packed. Berry Head, by contrast, draws wildlife tourism, coastal path operators and conservation-linked marketing, where the value is in showing the scale of the reserve and the cliffs rather than any single building.

Brixham's position at the southern point of Tor Bay also puts it on the route for pleasure cruises running along the coast towards Dartmouth, and operators working those trips want a shot of a boat leaving the harbour or rounding Berry Head, an angle that only works from the air since the harbour entrance is narrow and hard to frame from any point on land.

Because Brixham's harbour is a working port first and a tourist destination second, the strongest images of it are tied to the fishing fleet's own rhythm rather than to light or weather alone: boats moored close together first thing, the market in full swing, or the harbour clearing out as the fleet puts to sea. Photographing the working harbour rather than a static backdrop means coordinating around that activity, which changes day to day, rather than simply picking a calm morning.

Churston Cove, tucked around the headland towards Churston itself, gives a quieter, more residential alternative to the main harbour, useful for the newer development in that direction where the pitch is a peaceful mooring and a sheltered cove rather than the noise and colour of the fish market. Weather is worth planning around too: Brixham's headland position makes it the most exposed part of Tor Bay to wind from any direction, so bookings are held loosely against the forecast rather than fixed weeks ahead.