So yesterday I’m feeling under the weather. I lay down for a nice long afternoon nap. The doorbell rings. #$#@ now I have to put on pants. I find my pants and the doorbell rings again. I open it.
John Doe: “Hi, I’m John Doe. I’ve taken a picture of your house from my plane, can I show it to you?”
Me: “Um, no thanks.”
John Doe (smiling): “It will only take a few minutes”
I’m feeling grumpy 'cause I’m under the weather and he woke me from my nap, but I say:
Me: “No thank you, I’m not really interested.”
John Doe: “C’mon I’ve come a long way to show it to you. You are a tough man to get in touch with.”
OK, now I’m even more grumpy.
Me: "Sucks to be you. Don’t come to my house uninvited, don’t take any pictures of my or my house uninvited and kindly get the ### off my land.
John Doe: “Asshole.” This is muffled because I have just closed the door in his face. A younger me would have kicked his ass for calling me an asshole too.
We’ve had that happen. He wants Khadaji to buy the picture (at a wildly inflated price). They go out, take air photos of a bunch of houses; if they even get one sucker to buy, they’ve done good.
My SO had taken some much better pictures of our house and land on a plane ride he went on, so we turned the guy down…he was charging a lot, over $300 IIRC and that was 15 or so years ago…I wonder what they’re getting now?
You don’t need one, but you might want one. Stupid though, if I want an aerial photo of my house, I’ll go get one. Same with everything else they try and push on you. To the Telstra telemarketer, “if I am unhappy with AAPT I will call you, ok?”
I just tried Google Earth and if it wasn’t for the fact that my OS isn’t supported, I’d have it. I know someone gave me a site that worked for me once.
Not everyone has internet access, and not everyone with internet access is aware of the availability of aerial photos of just about everywhere.
If such a person came to my door I’d just blithely mention that I already have aerial photos of where I live and if I want another I’ll just snap one next time I’m on the 45 entry for downwind for runway 09 at my local airport. Then I’d ask whether they have a commercial pilot’s license and other things to make them as uncomfortable as possible. If I felt like toying with them. Otherwise, I’d just shut the door in their face.
This seems to be a new cottage industry, usually door to door. FWIW, the instances that I have heard of have been legit, but overpriced.
I too have found my house on various public web sites. In addition, if you know folks who work with GIS, you may be able to get access to higher resolution satellite photos. The trouble with these is that they are still very low res at the the size that you would want.
These photographers are taking photos from planes; I don’t know what format or resolution they use but I would suspect that it is larger enough to allow a decent enlargement. Bosda’s suggestion sounds like a good idea.
I work with a woman whose husband turned away a guy doing this. She later went to a neighborhood get-together and almost everyone had bought the photos. She wished that she had as well.
I’d have to say that the salesman in the OP needs serious work on his sales technique. You probably could have got rid of him quicker if you hadn’t taken the time to put on your pants.
Now, call me crazy, but the aerial photo of my house (supposing I lived in one) is going to look like … the top of my house. Whoop de frickin’ doo. Not something I want to spent money on.
My parents once had a lady do a drawing of the front of our house. This is almost worse, because if you want to see the front of your house you can go outside and stand there as long as you please, but I can at least see where this is coming from: providing a different look to a familiar picture.
Sure, I’ll go on Google Earth and look at it and go ooh and ahh for a few minutes, but that’s it. No need to do anything more with it.
All these posts presume your house CAN be seen from the air.
We have trees. Many, many trees. Giant trees. A huge elm next to the south-west corner. Rows of huge maples along the entire west and north sides. Two more maples either side of the east (back) side door.
I’ve seen photos of our house from the air. If it isn’t dead winter, what you see is a mass of green with a tiny, irregular patch of dark gray in among it.
Not worth the cost of the ink to print a freebie copy.
Now, if you want to sell me gutter-cleaning services, I’ll be happy to talk to you.
Not all arial photography involves a “straight-down” orientation.
If you engage someone to photograph your property from the air, it can be “survey style,” or you may prefer something that is more aesthetically composed, showing the buildings from a more oblique angle and giving a sense of how they relate to the landscape around them.
People doing this door-to-door are little different from the nuisances that snap pictures of tourists in the street.
My dad bought a photo of his house, taken from a plane. I think he actually contracted to have it done, rather than just buying one a guy took, I don’t know for sure though.
It’s a very pretty shot, two in fact, from different angles. Unfortunately, he had some ugly patio stuff going on at the time, it would look vastly better if taken today.
