Nick Waite, photographer, Harrisonburg, Virginia

I'm from Davis, West Virginia. I raced in Europe with the U.S. National Team and spent years as a professional mountain bike and road racer, then built an online bike shop and a bike messenger company. These days I'm behind the camera.

I photograph property across the Shenandoah Valley. Listings for agents, short-term rentals for Airbnb and VRBO hosts, and architectural work for design firms and builders.

The work is deliberately narrow. My focus is architecture and the spaces inside it. Reading a room, waiting for the light to do the right thing, and knowing which frame actually sells the space are specific skills, and they are the ones I have spent my time on.

One photographer behind every job. The person you spoke to on the phone is the person who shows up, and the standard does not change with the subject.

I am also an Airbnb host, which turns out to matter more than it sounds. I have watched my own listing's performance move with better photography, so when a host asks whether it is worth it, I am not guessing.

The work splits three ways. Architecture and interiors for architects, interior designers and design firms, which runs slower, is lit more carefully, and is shot to be portfolio material. Listings for agents, where the property has to go on market looking right. And rentals for hosts, where the lead image is worth money every weekend.

Those three jobs look similar from outside and are not. An architectural photo has to satisfy the person who designed the building. A listing photo has to be honest. An STR photo has to win a thumbnail against forty other cabins. Knowing which one you are making, before the tripod goes down, is most of the work.

I shoot with full-frame Canon bodies, tilt-shift glass for the architectural work, and I fly as an FAA Part 107 certified drone pilot. The gear matters less than knowing when to wait twenty minutes for the sun to come off a west-facing wall, but people ask, so there it is.

Based in

Harrisonburg, Virginia

Service area

Rockingham County, Massanutten Resort, McGaheysville, Elkton, Staunton, Waynesboro, Luray, Stanley, and Canaan Valley, West Virginia.

Insured

Fully insured for commercial and residential property work.

Licensed

FAA Part 107 certified drone pilot.