I enjoy real-estate photography. Every house is completely different! How is the lighting? How large is the home? Is there a swimming pool or storage shed? Each listing is a new challenge with new photographic opportunities.
I have two primary goals when shooting a real-estate listing. First, I want to tell the story of the house. Weird right? Well, if you consider the price, location, and time taken to put the property together (house, yard, driveway, and more intricate details inside the house), you will understand what I mean. I want every single image to tell as much of the story as possible. For example,what is the first thing I see when I enter the front-door? Will I be able to see my guests while preparing a meal for them? Buyers want to know what their experience will be like living in the home, BEFORE purchasing.
My second goal is to give a proper aesthetic representation of the listing while making it look as desirable as possible. Let’s break this down real quick. By proper aesthetic representation, I mean have accurate color, brightness, and space. We want gray walls to look the proper gray, we want rooms to have the proper brightness, and we want large spaces to look their proper size. All of this involves shooting with proper exposure and angles in camera, then good editing during post-processing. Here is where ethics enter in. I want the property to look its best, however, I cannot ethically remove a huge wall-crack with Photoshop. What can I do, ethically? Well, can those nail holes be patched by the seller or new owner? Definitely! Can I make the living room a bit brighter by adding brighter bulbs or letting light in on a sunny day? Absolutely! If it is possible in reality (not realty lol), then I believe it is ethical in post-processing. This is a topic we may visit more thoroughly in the future.
My two primary goals are for simple reasons. If I meet those goals, I am happy, the realtor who hired me is happy, and the seller is happy. A couple of my favorite occurrences in shooting real-estate is when the realtor compliments how great the images look, or how an out-of-town potential buyer is coming to see the listing in person because of the photos. This does not happen because of my amazing photographic skills (sarcasm intended); it happens because of my attention to detail, and more importantly, my desire to tell the story of the listing.
