Premium Estate Package
A considered portrait of your property.
For owners of lakefront estates, legacy family properties, and significant private homes across the Brainerd Lakes corridor and northern Minnesota. Not real estate listing photography. A piece you keep.
Begin a conversationMost aerial photography is commissioned for a transaction: a listing, a marketing campaign, a quarterly report. The Premium Estate Package is commissioned for something else. It is a portrait. The goal is documentation with craft — imagery that holds up in twenty years, not imagery optimized for a website carousel.
We treat this work differently from our commercial projects. The pace is slower. The deliverable count is smaller. Each image is edited with more care. The cinematic film is treated as a standalone piece, not a content asset. And we do not fly until the light is right.
Northern Minnesota lake properties have qualities that are genuinely hard to convey from the ground: the relationship between a cabin and its shoreline, the way a dock extends into a bay, the scale of a property relative to its landscape. Good aerial work makes those qualities visible. That is what this package is for.
Why commission
The situations that bring clients here.
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The year before you sell
Properties change hands, and the version your family knew disappears. A pre-sale shoot documents the property as it is — not for the listing, but for the people who lived there.
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The year before a major renovation
Before you regravel the drive, rebuild the dock, or add the addition — capture what existed. Renovation before-and-afters carry real meaning, and the before disappears the day the excavator arrives.
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An anniversary at the lake place
Forty years of summers in one location is something worth marking. The property doesn't know it's an anniversary. You do.
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A generational transition
The family cabin passes from one generation to the next. The parents sell what the grandparents built. Commission the portrait before that transition, not after.
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Simply because it deserves it
Some properties are worth documenting because of what they are, not because of what is about to happen to them.
Tiers
Three ways to commission.
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Estate Aerial Portrait
Single shoot
A considered portrait of your property, captured at golden hour. A private gallery of finished images and a short cinematic film.
- Single golden-hour aerial shoot
- 25–35 finished, retouched images
- 30–60 second cinematic film
- Private delivery gallery
- Optional fine-art print add-ons
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Most popular
Estate Four-Season Series
Across the year
Four shoots timed to spring thaw, peak summer, fall color, and snow. Delivered as a curated annual gallery and a year-in-review film.
- Four shoots across the year
- Curated annual gallery
- Year-in-review cinematic film
- Private delivery and archive
- Priority scheduling for weather windows
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Pre-Renovation / Pre-Sale Documentation
Single shoot
Comprehensive aerial documentation of an estate before a renovation, sale, or generational transition. Property, exterior structures, dock, shoreline, and surrounding context.
- Comprehensive aerial coverage
- Property and exterior structures
- Dock and shoreline documentation
- Surrounding context imagery
- Archive-quality private delivery
Timing
When to schedule your shoot.
Late May and early June
Green-up is complete but summer haze has not arrived. Water is clear. Light is long and warm from about 7:30 p.m. through sunset. The least crowded time of year on most lakes. Recommended for first-time commissions.
Mid-September through early October
Peak fall color typically runs late September to the second week of October in the Bemidji and Brainerd corridors. Color can peak and fade within 10 days. Water stays clear. Light drops lower in the sky, which flatters shoreline properties. The strongest window for seasonal estate work.
January and February
Frozen lakes with clean snow cover and blue-sky days produce some of the most graphic estate imagery we shoot. If your property has a strong winter identity or you want a four-season record, these months deliver a look unavailable at any other time of year.
Flexible timing note
Estate portrait shoots are scheduled with a flexible weather window: we book a target week rather than a fixed time, and shoot on the best available day within it. Golden hour shifts by about 20 minutes per month, so we confirm the specific call time based on your property's orientation and the current sunset schedule.
Process
How it works.
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Conversation
Tell us about the property, the timing, and what the commission is for. We respond within one business day.
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Light scouting and planning
We review the property location, orientation, and surrounding geography to identify the optimal flight path and the right time of day for your specific shoreline and tree cover.
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The shoot
We arrive before golden hour. We work at pace, but not hurried. You can be present or not — either is fine. The shoot runs until we have the coverage we need.
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Editing and delivery
Images are edited with care, not volume. You receive a private gallery link and the cinematic film within seven business days.
Begin a conversation
Tell us about your property.
Share a few details about the location, the timing, and what the property means to you. We respond within one business day.