28 Sep Real Estate Photography 101 – 10 Basic Tips To Up Your Photography

Whether you are a brand new real estate agent, an up and coming real estate photographer or even just helping out your property management company, there is a system we use that will save you so much time when photographing rentals or vacant listings.

For those who don’t have time to watch the video or who are in a quiet space, let’s break it down blog style.

BEFORE YOU GET INSIDE:

1. Do Not Park In Front of The Listing

So many times, I’ve parked casually on the side of the street in front of the house only to find out my car is in the way of getting the perfect shot. Or I’ll be inside the home photographing the living room and see my Dodge Avenger taking up the whole window view. Bottom line is it’s not a great look. It’s not the end of the world, but start off your shoot right. Don’t do it 

2. Take At Least 3 Angles of the Front (And the Back)

The front shot is the golden egg. This is the picture that will be used in everything from the MLS to the flyer to the cover of Facebook albums. We recommend the right corner, left corner, directly center of the front yard, AND (if the yard is large) a close up angle in the center. If you mess up this shot, you’re screwed. Sorry Charlie.

3. Create A System For How to Shoot Each Home

We move from the front to the back and THEN inside. This optimizes our time, and after the shoot in post, we can decipher quickly house 1 from house 2. Whenever we see the next front yard, we know it’s house 2. Make sense? Cool. If not, drop us a comment.

4. Always Take Pictures of a Storage Unit

When you are shooting real estate photography, you have to imagine yourself as you are an interested buyer or renter. WHO WOULDN’T WANT TO KNOW THAT THERE IS A STORAGE UNIT?? Common sense people. If you can go inside, go inside and snap a quick shot too.

5. Take a Second to Focus on the Porch

As you envision yourself as interested in the home, make sure you really capture the essence of the porch. Is it screened in? Is there a deck? Treat it as it’s own room. People love porches. Just sayin’.

NOW LET’S GO INSIDE:

6. Turn Off All Ceiling Fans

Nobody likes to see a huge blurry blob at the top of their room photos. Unless you’ve got your shutter speed at some crazy level or a top notch camera (which you probably don’t… YET), then you should just turn all fans off. Even if you’ve got to jump up and stop it with your hand…shhh don’t tell.

7. Open All Blinds

You know sometimes you still can’t see out the windows especially on sunny days or with low end cameras, but when you can, it makes all the difference. People want to see what’s out of their windows. Well, sometimes they don’t, but hey you should be honest with them about what they’re getting through your pictures.

8. CLOSE ALL TOILET LIDS

Not only are people sticklers for this, but it really does look so much better. No one needs to see the inside of a toilet. Do them the honor and save them them the headache of wondering why you didn’t close it. Take that from someone who has made this mistaken so many times.

9. Move Obvious Little Things that Take from the Photos

Honestly, depending on who you are, this is not your job. This is whoever is working on the house’s job, BUT let me just say, it DOES make difference. In my younger days, it would be frustrating or I would stand strong that “IT WAS NOT MY JOB”. BUT. Just help everybody out, and pick up the random paint brush in the corner. If there is a ridiculous amount of stuff, no way. Just small things. small.

10. Take AT LEAST 2 angles of EVERY room

And sometimes more. In the kitchen, you will want to take a couple of extra photos. For every other room in the house, please scope the room for the best angles and click away. Even bathrooms, we like to give them multiple options. Sometimes in editing we see that only one works, but that’s so much better than having to go back out to the property and shoot again. I speak from experience.

What are some of your basic tips? Were these helpful? Let us know in the comments!!

Why listen to me? I started Bow Real Estate Photography in 2016. I’ve traveled all around from South Carolina to Chicago shooting real estate photography and videography. We’ve grown from a couple of agents in a low country town to working with property management companies, agents and brokerages across the south. We now even subcontract out some of our work to up and coming photographers. Hundreds of homes later, we feel like we have the knowledge to teach. So here we are. – Cole

www.bowrealestatephotography.com