Aerial photography and video in Crediton

Crediton's setting is unusually distinct for a Devon market town: the Creedy valley here is flanked by steep hills of red sandstone, and that colour carries through into the local buildings, showing warm against the surrounding green farmland in a combination particular to this stretch of Mid Devon. The town itself is a long run of Georgian and Victorian high street buildings, with Holy Cross Church, one of the largest parish churches in Devon, dominating the skyline at one end.

Away from the centre, the lanes around Crediton hold a scatter of cob and thatch cottages, and the wider hinterland is given over to farmhouses and barn conversions across some of the most productive farmland in Devon. That mix, a dense historic centre, scattered rural building stock and open working farmland, gives Crediton a wider range of distinct aerial subjects than a town with a single dominant character.

Crediton's rural hinterland is full of the kind of property that depends on an aerial shot to make its case: a barn conversion or farmhouse for sale needs to show its land, its outbuildings and its position in the valley, not just the finished interior, and estate agents working this patch of Mid Devon rely on exactly that wider context to justify a rural price tag. The same argument runs the other way for working farms diversifying into weddings, events or holiday accommodation, where a barn wedding venue or a farm stay needs an aerial image showing guests the whole setting, the approach, the parking, the view out over the Creedy valley, in a way no photo taken from the farmyard gate can.

Downes House, a historic house on the edge of the town, and the working farmland around Crediton both suit the same kind of imagery for slightly different audiences, one aimed at buyers or event bookers, the other at anyone marketing the town's agricultural identity more generally.

The high street itself, a long run of Georgian and Victorian shopfronts leading up to Holy Cross Church, is worth photographing for its own sake too: independent shops and market town businesses trading on Crediton's identity as a working agricultural centre benefit from images that place them clearly within that setting rather than a single frontage shot taken from the pavement opposite.

Crediton sits open to Atlantic weather coming in from the west with comparatively little shelter, and the valley itself tends to trap damp air, conditions that make picking a properly clear, settled day worth doing rather than flying on the first dry looking morning. Flat, even light also suits the warm red sandstone tone that runs through so many of the town's buildings, whereas the low, raking sun of a clear dawn throws harder shadows across the valley than a shoot timed for the middle of the day.

Crediton also sits within easy reach of Exeter, Tiverton, Okehampton and Barnstaple, useful for covering more than one Mid Devon or wider Devon booking in a single day out.