VHT’s own Elizabeth Dooley was profiled this week by Crain’s New York as she pursues the ‘perfect shot’.
Elizabeth Dooley recently scaled a rickety water tower overlooking Manhattan’s skyline, and stepped onto the ledge of a high-rise roof—all with a camera dangling from her neck and a tripod in her hand.
“Maybe I go above and beyond just to have fun,” Ms. Dooley, 32, said. “But I want to get the perfect shot.” Her freelance photos, void of unsightly rooftop mechanical systems, satellite dishes and soot-covered chimneys, help the Corcoran Group and other brokers sell real estate.
Ms. Dooley earns between $100 and $300 a gig, which she gets from Chicago-headquartered VHT Inc., a real estate photography company.
Indoors, she has traversed an iron beam 10 feet above a loft living room. Often her maneuvers are as simple as rearranging dining-room sets and sectional sofas, or pulling up window shades to get landmarks like the Empire State Building into the picture. “If there’s a blue sky, that’s a bonus,” she said.
Ms. Dooley moved to New York a decade ago after graduating from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in photojournalism and theater arts. At the outset, she worked as a photographer’s assistant, but studio work felt too confining. She itched for a job that let her explore the city. “Real estate really fit the mold,” she said.
It helped that her father, a retired real estate appraiser, took her on photo shoots of properties he was appraising in her hometown of Sioux City, Iowa.
At 5-foot-3 and 140 pounds, Ms. Dooley attributes her agility to years of gymnastics training. “I’ve had a daredevil sensibility my whole life,” she said. “I was a tree-climber, and I’m still a kid at heart.”
Her high-wire acts can be frightening to witness. Some brokers “freak out” on photo shoots, Ms. Dooley said. “I always say to my mother, ‘Don’t look at the stuff I post.’ ”
Via Crain’s New York