Behind the Scenes of a Real Estate Photoshoot
How long have I been photographing real estate? It's been 9 years since my first session. With many shoots under my belt, I have learned what looks good and what doesn't!
Whether you are a realtor listing a property, or a homeowner doing it yourself, getting great photos will help you get eyeballs on your listing and the best price for your client or homeowner.
Here are 10 tips for maximum effectiveness of real estate marketing photos. If you can't stick to these rules, hire a professional who can.
1. RE photos are created to present the best features of the property. Each photo should be visually correct, as in walls are vertical, not leaning inward or outward in the frame. Those kinds of visual distractions divert the viewer’s attention and need to be eliminated.
2. The most important photo is of the front exterior shot. It is the photo that will be seen the most and usually the first one a prospective buyer sees. It should be a great shot as this is the photo used to entice the buyer to look further into the property. Shots taken at an elevated height of 10 to 20 feet above street level can enhance the look of the front of the building.
3. Interiors require a wide-angle lens to tell the best story by increasing the feeling of space in a room. For interiors, the lens should have a focal length between 14 and 24mm. Usually point-and-shoot cameras don't have this wide an angle lens.
4. Clutter must be removed, and the interior staged for best results. It's a fact that staged homes are worth the effort whether the home owner hires a home-staging company or does it themselves. Homes sell faster and for a higher price when this is done.
5. Interiors should be light and bright to make a positive impression on the prospective buyer, so make sure there are no dark corners or underexposed areas in your photos. Special lighting equipment including off-camera flash and photo-editing programs and techniques must be used to enhance the images, bringing out the best exposures possible.
6. Vertical lines such as walls and cabinets must appear perfectly vertical and be parallel to the edges of the photo. When photos don’t look this way it becomes a major visual distraction to the buyer.
7. Vertical and horizontal lines must be straight. Wide-angle lenses cause lines near the edges of photos to curve (called barrel distortion) so special photo editing software must be used to remove this lens distortion. If a wide-angle is available on a point-and-shoot or camera phone, editing software is a must to correct this phenomenon.
8. There are techniques used to not let bright windows overexpose an image. Unless special lighting and/or photo editing software is used these interior windows will tend to look overly bright, even blurry, so the view out the window is not visible. If the view out the window is important, make sure your exposures are correct and/or you have editing software to improve the look.
9. Colour casts (typically too yellow or orange, from incandescent light bulbs) can distract the viewer and make the interiors look unrealistic.
10. The way photos are presented online has a huge impact on the overall effectiveness of marketing a property. Photos have the most impact when presented large (800 x 600 pixels or larger) and are in landscape format. Shooting the bathroom in portrait format jars the viewer when looking at images one at a time or in a slideshow. Consider a slideshow to maximize the impact of marketing photos.
Terrill Bodner, MPA SPA is an Accredited member of Professional Photographers of Canada (PPOC) and nationally qualified judge, and is one of a very few professional photographers living in Prince George who have achieved the designation of Master of Photographic Arts and Service of Professional Arts from Professional Photographers of Canada.
Terrill specializes in Family Portraiture, Personal Branding and Headshots (in studio and on location), and Fine Art photography.
Her Accreditations include Portraiture, Fine Art/Photo Decor, Image Manipulation, Animals, Wildlife, Nature, Ornithology/Bird, Botanical, Pictorial/Scenic, Travel Illustration, Stock, and Night Photography.
0 Comments