Aerial photography and video in Okehampton

Okehampton is one of the few Devon towns where Dartmoor's high ground is not a distant backdrop but a real presence at the edge of the streets. The East and West Okement rivers meet close to the town centre, and Yes Tor and High Willhays, the two highest points in southern England, rise immediately to the south. From above, that closeness is the whole story: granite terraces and slate roofs give way within a few hundred metres to open moorland, and a single aerial frame can hold the town, the river valley and the tors together.

The town itself is worth photographing on its own terms too. The granite and slate centre sits alongside Victorian terraces and a broad spread of post-war housing, while the surrounding parishes still hold working moorland farms and stone longhouses, some centuries old. Okehampton Castle, a ruined Norman fortress on a wooded spur above the West Okement, is the kind of landmark that reads clearly from the air in a way it never quite does from the road, its footprint and setting only really making sense from height.

Okehampton is also often described as the gateway to northern Dartmoor, sitting at the point where the road out of town meets the open moor, and outdoor event organisers, from trail races to wild camping operators, use the town as their base. That gives a second reason to book aerial coverage here beyond property and tourism marketing: a start line, a car park full of competitors, or a campsite spread across open ground all read far better from above than from a single ground-level camera position.

Estate agents selling property on the edge of Dartmoor are the obvious audience. A longhouse or a moorland smallholding sells on its setting as much as its floor plan, and a ground-level photo of a stone farmhouse says very little about what actually surrounds it. An aerial image showing the same property against open moor, with Yes Tor on the horizon, does work that a room-by-room walkthrough cannot.

The same logic applies to farms diversifying into glamping, campsites or event hire on the moor's edge. Dartmoor National Park draws walkers and cyclists in real numbers, and a farm or holiday let trading on that access needs to show it, not describe it. Aerial stills of a site with the moor rising behind it, or 6K video following the approach along the valley, give a marketing team material a phone camera at ground level cannot produce.

Meldon Viaduct, on the old railway line west of the town, now carries the Granite Way cycle route out onto the moor edge, and it is one of those structures that only really photographs well from above, where its full span and its position over the valley become obvious. Tourism operators and accommodation providers along that route have a recognisable landmark to use in their marketing, rather than a generic moorland view.

Okehampton also sits in some of the wettest, windiest ground in the county, with Dartmoor forcing Atlantic air upward right on the doorstep. In practice that means booking around clear, settled spells rather than fixed dates, and building a little flexibility into the schedule so a shoot lands on a day the moor is actually visible rather than lost in cloud.