Creative high desert rural land real estate photography in Socorro County New Mexico
To be a good rural land real estate photographer in New Mexico, one must be able to often make something out of nothing. Maybe there is a distant mountain or mesa, maybe there are good clouds, but the desert land itself, is often just dry grass and thorny bushes. I use these, for low angle shots and incorporate the dry grass into the foreground to make a more creative and eye catching photo of what otherwise would be just a flat, sparse landscape. Thankfully at this rural land photo shoot in Socorro County, New Mexico, the clouds were fantastic and the sunset pretty good to add some style to the photos.
Many visits to Socorro County west of Belen in New Mexico
Socorro County New Mexico, near Belen in particular, is one of the areas I have visited the most in my 5+ years of photographing hundreds of rural land real estate properties. Then even more specifically, this area near the small airport west of Belen, high up on a plain bordered by mountains I return to multiple times each year. It is a peaceful area, and once you go south a bit, you feel like the entire desert is just yours. Walking this land with my two cameras is a peaceful photography work experience. The only noise comes when I send the drone up to get aerial photos of the entire 5 acres.
Returning to Socorro County New Mexico for rural land real estate photography for the first time in 2021, an area I have been to many times before, I knew what to expect. It would be windy, very windy, Google Maps would show roads where there is only open desert, and eventually, the cows would come home. I experienced all of the above, but those challenges did not stop me from getting the results the client wanted with the right combination of clouds, light, and sunset. If you would like to own these views, check out Hemingway Land.
Getting variety from the same views rural land real estate
Here at Jason Collin Photography rural land real estate is a staple of my business, especially with Hemingway Land, now over 3 years working together! I had a huge 18 property shoot in Socorro County recently for this client. This type of shoot takes a lot of prep work, making sure I plot out the properties in the most efficient order, not any possible impassable roads, and then perhaps the biggest challenge, trying to get the photos to look somewhat different even though all 18 properties essentially had the same open views, and were all just empty, featureless land. How to get variety then? Well, have the clouds change helps. Then sometimes I frame the sun to the upper left, or the upper right, or I move the horizon higher or lower in the frame too.
Hustling to 20 properties in the Socorro County Desert
Typically on rural land real estate shoots for Hemingway Land, it is one property, one evening, starting about 2 hours before actual sunset, making 40 photos of the one property and often a drone video as well. Every now and then they get a bulk purchase and the shooting is very different like on a recent trip to Socorro County, New Mexico. There were 20 properties to shoot, I had to start early in the afternoon in order to finish with enough light, and I only made 3 photos per property. During these bulk shoots I am hustling like crazy from property to property, passing cows and big piles of tires truly out in the middle of nowhere miles from paved road, which in turn is miles from any kind of town. How do these tires get out here??
During a marathon day of shooting 25 rural land real estate properties for Hemingway Land Company in the desert off of Highway 60 in Socorro County, New Mexico, at one point along the open desert road I stopped my Jeep to look at the view. The desert Road seemed to go on together until it merely became a vanishing point at the base of a distant mountain. From time to time you will find on Jason Collin Photography I write about the Road in poetic terms. Usually it is paved. However, if one wants to really, really take the Road less traveled, then these tracks through the New Mexico desert can take you down a path with an unknown ending, which is the best kind.
Ideal clouds for rural land real estate photography in New Mexico
On another rural land real estate photography assignment in Socorro County New Mexico for Hemingway Land, the clouds were finally close to ideal! It was a long 8-mile drive down dirt roads to reach this property, which is already in a remote area west of the town of Belen. I actually know this area very, very well having photographed at least 10 properties in this general area before, but never quite this far south. With that much dirt road to reach the property and that far from where I have been previously, it always makes me nervous about what the actual road conditions will be, or if someone will have put up a gate! Fortunately, this was as smooth as a rural land real estate shoot gets and I had time enjoy the views in between getting these fantastic photos for the client, which is my aim for each and every client of Jason Collin Photography.
