Apollo Beach, Florida.

Apollo Beach is a canal community, and on a canal listing the water is the product. A buyer paying the waterfront premium is buying depth, access and the dock, and their first three questions are how long it takes to reach open bay, whether the canal holds enough water at low tide, and what condition the seawall and the lift are in. A gallery that shows a nice kitchen and one distant glimpse of water has not answered any of them.

So waterfront shoots here are built around aerials, and around aerials flown deliberately rather than as a single overhead. One frame follows the canal out to the bay so the access route is legible. Another sits low over the dock so the lift, the seawall and the water depth read clearly. A third places the house against the wider Apollo Beach and Tampa Bay context. Those three frames do more for a waterfront listing than any interior in the set.

Twilight matters more here than almost anywhere else we work, and for a straightforward reason: the canals run west toward the bay, so these properties face the sunset. A twilight set with the dock lights on, warm windows and color over the water is the strongest asset a waterfront listing can have, and it is worth scheduling the whole shoot around.

Inland Apollo Beach, including much of MiraBay and the newer construction off Big Bend, is a more conventional suburban job, though even there the community's lagoons, marina and beach club carry weight with buyers and deserve coverage.