A thread for real estate, architectural, and interior design photography

I've been looking for a bit to start a thread where the real estate, architectural, etc photographers can get together and share photos, ideas and feedback. I've been in this field for a relatively short time and I'm always looking to get feedback on my work from other like minded photographers. I've seen a few of them here but no real dedicated thread for it. It would be wonderful if we could get a bunch of people together to share here.

My big issue that I'm wrestling with now is the use of HDR or flash for interiors. Since 90% of the homes I shoot have wooden ceilings, off-white earth tone paint schemes, wooden floors and high-end countertops etc, I find that I struggle with getting good clean flash exposures, compared to say, a more modern, clean interior with white ceilings and white cabinets, countertops, tile floor, etc.

I really feel like I don't know if I'm taking the right approach, but my shots are leading me to repeat business- I just want to improve as much as possible.

Here is some of my work - I will post more as I complete more assignments. If you've got it, post your work and we'll try to critique one another and get some feedback.

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these are great shots mike! i'm really new to photography, i'm a new RE agent and one reason I got into photography is to take photos for the clients' homes.

These shots are they hdr or flash?

They are all some type of blend, either all HDR and one of them (the 4th) had a flash popped off in the wine room adjacent to the dining table to light it up a bit. I have other examples that have used flash that I'll post in a bit.

Wow, these are superb! Makes me want to buy a new home...

These are excellent shoots. Do you do panoramas 180 or 360?

Thanks for your compliments - I only do standard shots, as most of my clients publish the photos in some type of brochure, magazine, etc. Maybe I'll try a panorama one day, but I am not a big fan of the 360/virtual tour stuff as I don't think it can make a house look as good as possible.

These are are really great. I'm taking some construction portfolio shots this week (as a favor) so I've been looking for examples and "how-tos" on this kind of shooting.

How many exposures are you using for the HDR images? Or does this vary depending on the light in the room?

Hey, which camera and lens did you use anyways?

ignutzz- usually three, but sometimes as many as 6 or 8 depending on how insane the lighting conditions are. Sometimes they get crazy and need a very wide range.

joon- For 99% of my interior photography I'm using either a 5d or 1d Mark III with a 17-40 or 50 1.4. Every now and then I do exteriors with a 70-200, but that is not an everyday thing. I've used my 15mm fish on one shoot, for one shot.

Excellent shots!

The standard wide interior shots are only half of the battle to me. How many times have you gone to visit a property, an apartment, or a hotel and found out that the location is just not quite what you had expected? "Intimate, private backyard" might mean a fifty foot corridor between the rear deck and I-80, "trendy urban setting" could just be another polished phrase which translates to "parties until 4am on weekdays." I always make an effort to put the house into a setting with my photographs. While the interiors are certainly important, there must also be photos which tell the story of the exterior of the house. I oftentimes have seen real estate photographer's portfolios containing nothing but interiorts. Why would you want to neglect such a large part of the home-buying decision in your portfolio?

Here are a few images from recent shoots in which I took note of an interesting setting that might play a very large role in influencing a home-buying or renting decision. Feel free to tell me if you think that they worked or didn't work.

There is a bit more writing and opinion over at my blog at www.mpkelley.com/blog but I didn't want to bore you all to tears.

For some reason flickr is bugging out right now, and the photos are intermittently loading...odd. Hope they all work.

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Are you using anything to fix the distortion on the 17-40? All the interior shots are fantastic, I don't see much edge distortion. Only thing I'd try to change is the exposure of the windows.

I run them all through LensFix CL, which removes the barrel distortion.

I know there are a few more of you realty shooters lurking here, post em up! I've been experimenting with HDR and flash blends lately to get some more specular highlights and contrast in my images. The first and second images employ this technique. It also helps to get flash in the frame to control the sometimes wacky white balance problems you get when there are three different colored lights in the frame (daylight, tungsten, fluoro)

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I have a walk-through for a project this Thursday so I'm hoping to be able to post some shots next week.

This place will be a challenge as it's a recording studio with VERY moody lighting. Plus I'm going to be shooting during a fully staffed work day.

Mike - thanks for posting the combo lighting shots as I've been trying to figure out in my head the best way to deal with the extreme lights/darks in the recording spaces.

Thanks too for the earlier response - I meant to say that earlier when I first read it.