Word on the Street: National drone photography company serving Fresno

A national company specializing in aerial photography for real estate, inspection, agriculture and insurance industries is taking flight in Fresno.

National Drone Photography Services, based in Asheville, N.C., is contracting with five local licensed pilots to fly drones and capture pictures and videos for clients like Realtors. The pilots have the 333 exemptions required by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones.

“Each market, like Fresno, has a bunch a pilots that are looking for work,” said president Maddison Lake. “We hire them to shoot properties.”

Then the company, which has an administrative team of 50 employees, handles the rest. That means all the paperwork and legal stuff in the relatively new world of drone services, Lake said. The company also works on educating the various industries about using drones.

“We solve the legal compliance aspect of what we do,” Lake said. “We want to make sure Realtors stay compliant. We basically want to bring aerial photography products to every one of our markets so that every real estate agent can have great new technology while not worrying about endless amounts of financial fines and the legality of operating a drone.”

Lake Holdings is the parent company of National Drone Photography which started in 2014 and launched in Miami. Now, the company is in 46 markets nationwide. Lake focuses on cities with active real estate markets and where new Realtors like to start working. Fresno was one of more than 400 possible cities to go, Lake said. The company has been in Fresno for nearly two months.

The goal is to build relationships first with brokers and now with real estate agents, Lake said.

“We want to make aerial photography commonplace in the real estate market.”

This story was originally published May 22, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Word on the Street: National drone photography company serving Fresno."