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

And that comment about the home being vacant when escrow closes...LOL....that is completely irrelevant when it comes to shooting RE. It is important to show how the furniture works in a room so that online viewers can visual the space better. This is why the best RE agents stage homes, because it helps to sell them. Go into any builder model home, is it vacant or does it have furniture? Enough said about that. LOL

I did not say that Joe only shoots the furniture. I think his pictures are 100% better then the majority of Realtors. If you have the change to access a MLS you will notice that the majority of Realtors only show just a little part of a room due to lack of a wide angle and what they show is some part of the furniture.
Showing room size and flow to other rooms are more important. I just had a client who is constantly on the internet looking at homes. When he told me that I gave him a list of comparable homes. He told me that he saw those homes too, but the pictures did not give him a good picture of the rooms and the floorplan. After 25 years of real estate and a design engineers background I understand what he wants.

Ronny Geenen wrote in post #13661447
Originally Posted by Ronny Geenen
The pictures are very clear, but I still have two coments. I like to see more flow how you get from room to another. That means you should use a wider part of your zoom. Buyers have not seen the interior and want to have an idea.
You should also concentrate more on the rooms and forget the furniture. To many realtors think taken pictures of interiors is taken pictures of furniture. Prospective buyers are more interested in a house and at the time escrow closes the home is empty.
I have more than 25 years real estate experience.

Thank you for your comments but could you show me an example from your own photography?

Hi Joe,
Just go to my web: Http://www.LetPictures​Talk.com and pull the homes down from the menu. Double click on one of the homes in the sub-menu and view them one by one.

Thank you Ronney. I had a look at your website and it's R/E images. I see what you ment by getting more flow. Now I have a question for you? Do you use an HDR or Exposure Fusion technique for your R/E Photography?

Ronny Geenen wrote in post #13661447
Thank you for your comments but could you show me an example from your own photography?

Hi Joe,
Just go to my web: Http://www.LetPictures​Talk.com and pull the homes down from the menu. Double click on one of the homes in the sub-menu and view them one by one.

Ronny
I think the shots are descriptive and tell a good story about the interior. Simple and to the point. I am not one to use additional light, but some of your shots are a little dark, but that can evoke a mood also. Where I shoot in the Aspen, Co area, the view and the way the interior interacts with the exterior is absolutely critical to capture. Maybe that is not so good in certain areas of socal. It seems as though your shots are taken during the middle of the day (on occasion I need to shoot in the middle of the day but i try to get some evening time also). I usually shoot only 1 house per day(when i am lucky), so i can get some good evening images.
My $.02.
Greg

Ronny Geenen wrote in post #13661447
Hi Joe,
Just go to my web: Http://www.LetPictures​Talk.com and pull the homes down from the menu. Double click on one of the homes in the sub-menu and view them one by one.

Ronny, just a few critiques for you:

1. You got a lot of converging lines in your photos. Try to get your verticals straight, it makes a world of difference to the eye.
2. You also have a lot of shots with clutter in the rooms and on the counter tops, which distracts the eye and takes away from the room and features. Cat food on the floor in a kitchen shot? That has to go.
3. Some of your shots look like they are OOF, so you might want to take those off your site. Soft photos are never a good thing in a portfolio.
4. You have one shot with a car in the driveway that takes away from the home as well.
5. Some of your shots are underexposed and some of them the flash is too harsh on the foreground. You may want to look into a diffuser to help with the harsh flash.

Ronny Geenen wrote in post #13661482
And that comment about the home being vacant when escrow closes...LOL....that is completely irrelevant when it comes to shooting RE. It is important to show how the furniture works in a room so that online viewers can visual the space better. This is why the best RE agents stage homes, because it helps to sell them. Go into any builder model home, is it vacant or does it have furniture? Enough said about that. LOL

I did not say that Joe only shoots the furniture. I think his pictures are 100% better then the majority of Realtors. If you have the change to access a MLS you will notice that the majority of Realtors only show just a little part of a room due to lack of a wide angle and what they show is some part of the furniture.
Showing room size and flow to other rooms are more important. I just had a client who is constantly on the internet looking at homes. When he told me that I gave him a list of comparable homes. He told me that he saw those homes too, but the pictures did not give him a good picture of the rooms and the floorplan. After 25 years of real estate and a design engineers background I understand what he wants.

I am also a Certified Residential Appraiser, therefore I have access to the MLS and I know what you are talking about. The lack of a UWA lens is what causes a lot of photos to be overwhelmed by a piece of furniture. However, I did not see that in Joe's photos.

As for showing the flow of the home, photos can only go so far. The best way to truly show the flow of a home is to use a walk-through video or an interactive floor plan w/ photos. This will allow an online viewer to get a much more accurate feel for a home's layout than photos alone every could.

djharmonix wrote in post #13290286
Nice house I shot today:

I missed this one. Beautiful shots Nicolas.
Greg

I shot a horribly small house in the worst possible 11 AM light today with windows that don't open..not super happy with what I'm seeing..I mean, it'll work for the agent, but not for a portfolio.

Shadow on the Door wrote in post #13663409
I shot a horribly small house in the worst possible 11 AM light today with windows that don't open..not super happy with what I'm seeing..I mean, it'll work for the agent, but not for a portfolio.

Its the nature of RE photography. You often don't have control over when you can shoot or the light!

Shadow on the Door wrote in post #13663409
I shot a horribly small house in the worst possible 11 AM light today with windows that don't open..not super happy with what I'm seeing..I mean, it'll work for the agent, but not for a portfolio.

I HATE those shoots where everything is working against you. I had one where the agent insisted I be there at 10 am for 'the best' light'. I was so thankful for the fact it was overcast that day, otherwise the interior shots would have been destroyed by the harsh sunlight. The dining, kitchen and living rooms had 2 story vaulted ceilings with huge windows and faced S/W, which is right where the sun was at 10 am. Had it been clear skies that morning, that shoot would have been a disaster.

TGrundvig wrote in post #13663066
As for showing the flow of the home, photos can only go so far. The best way to truly show the flow of a home is to use a walk-through video or an interactive floor plan w/ photos. This will allow an online viewer to get a much more accurate feel for a home's layout than photos alone every could.

What?
As an architect, I can vouch for the fact that most people cannot read a floor plan, it is a bunch of lines to them.
You have a habit of telling everyone the best way to do things. There are many way's to describe and illustrate an architectural experience, video being one of them.
Greg

gnwatts wrote in post #13663456
What?
As an architect, I can vouch for the fact that most people cannot read a floor plan, it is a bunch of lines to them.
You have a habit of telling everyone the best way to do things. There are many way's to describe and illustrate an architectural experience, video being one of them.
Greg

People can easily read black lines, maybe not blue prints, but black lines are very easy to understand. I do not have a habit of telling everyone the best way to do things. Photos are limited in showing the flow of a home when compared to photos and an interactive floor plan, or a walk through video.

TGrundvig wrote in post #13663530
I do not have a habit of telling everyone the best way to do things. Photos are limited in showing the flow of a home when compared to photos and an interactive floor plan, or a walk through video.

Aw come on Tyler, just admit you're a know it all!

annietex wrote in post #13663564
Aw come on Tyler, just admit you're a know it all!

LOL...okay, okay, I admit it, I know it all. LOL

I know what I know and that's all that I know.

TGrundvig wrote in post #13663530
People can easily read black lines, maybe not blue prints, but black lines are very easy to understand. I do not have a habit of telling everyone the best way to do things. Photos are limited in showing the flow of a home when compared to photos and an interactive floor plan, or a walk through video.

http://www.aspenskihom​es.com …-963-4014868/craig-morris

This is a link to one of the top brokers in the country. He has few virtual tours, his "videos" are just panned photos. I shot a home for him a few years ago, and I must admit he did not like some of my photos, so I learned a lot.

Saying you know the best way to do things invites people like me to remind you that there are many ways to do things. To make blanket statements about a subject that has many facets, from location to market to building type, is un-wise IMO. Your market in Colorado springs is not the same as ours in the Roaring Fork Valley etc.
Brokers in my area have people who are a few hours from the coast, and they are walking through the house they saw online that morning. Why would they want to bother reading a plan, when they can walk through the actual building a have lunch at Ajax Tavern?

Having practiced architecture for 32 years I can say with a certain amount of certainty that it is not common for people to truly understand a floor plan. They say they understand it, but a lot of the time it is not getting through.

I think the virtual tours are cool, but as an architect and photographer I wholeheartedly disagree with your above statement. The photograph can capture a piece of magic for a viewer, something a video rarely does IMO.

TGrundvig wrote in post #13663530
People can easily read black lines, maybe not blue prints, but black lines are very easy to understand. ...Photos are limited in showing the flow of a home when compared to photos and an interactive floor plan, or a walk through video.

Different horses for different courses. Buyers, agents, and lenders are all looking for different things in the photos and it's unlikely that one set will suffice. And you could easily break those categories into several subsets. For example, some buyers have the savvy to look past the superficial levels while other buyers care about nothing but the glitter - you won't find a floorplan in advertisements for the Grand Wailea's 5,500 sf suite.

But in almost every case, too much information at the outset increases the probability that a listing will be thrown into the discard pile. There's a careful balance that makes this an art.

Edit:

gnwatts wrote in post #13663752
... Having practiced architecture for 32 years I can say with a certain amount of certainty that it is not common for people to truly understand a floor plan. They say they understand it, but a lot of the time it is not getting through. ...

You might even agree with me that most of the time buyers don't even understand how to evaluate basic differences in size. Buyers might steadfastly stick to their requirement of 20 or more acres and quickly reject the estate with a small lot that's adjacent to a limitless National Forest. I'd reckon that the most important job of an agent (or perhaps even an architect) is to help clients understand what they really want.