Real Estate guidance and critique

Hey yall! Due to Covid and other extenuating circumstances, I am trying to dip my toes into the real estate market. I've been photographing people for a long time so all this HDR and merging/blending mumbo jumbo is new to me. I feel like my images look ok but are missing some polish. Oddly, there arent near the online help it seems as when I was starting portrait and wedding photography. Below are some images from my own home I used as a starting portfolio. Can yall comment and help a guy out? Thank you!

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2jY8​HPL

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Giving my 2 cents,

You're mostly there, the composition could use some tweaking but you got the general idea.

Your job essentially is to catalog the space, so ideally you want to get the whole room in 1 shot. There's 3 compositions you have to master, and they're the same compositions that an architect or an artist would use to sketch . The 1 point composition, 2 point composition and 3 point composition. Your straight on house shot is a 1 point, and all the rest you used 2 point perspective.

First critique: You have ALOT of things that are right up immediately against the edges around your images, curtains, picture frames, window frames, shelves.. it's unsettling. In design you always want to leave space around things so they don't feel cramped and crowded. Notice how the 2 images I attached has no parallel lines immediately against the edges (the left wall on the first photo has just enough information showing for your eyes to anchor yourself in the room, *it's obvious now you're standing there with your left shoulder to that wall). If the edge of your image must cut through something, you should try to cut it in a way so that peoples heads automatically fill in what's left out. (see the couches below)

You're also creating advertising images to market the house, fireplaces and the awesome windows will come with the house when its sold, the couches doesn't, and it's blocking the flow between spaces, might be wise to rearrange them a little to open up the flow between areas. those red chair and that sectional looks ugly to begin with and they're positioned in a way that it's prohibiting you from seeing the entire room with your camera. On your 4th and 5th shot I would've just cleared the room (maybe not the piano). On the 4th shot the sectional and the dog is blocking your view into the family area, and on the 5th shot I would've pulled back the sectional enough so the entire fireplace is visible. I can see someone might've put it there to "stage" the room a bit but in this case it's working against the goal. Less is more when it comes to having things in a room, the potential buyer is looking at the floors, moldings, countertops, details on those stairs, paneling on the walls... etc. Show them those things.

On the stairs shot I would've centered myself with the treats sign on that table and shot it straight on (in 1 point perspective), or take 1 step to your right, turn the camera to the left a little to show other room's relation to the stairs.

When shooting bathrooms, the less toilet the better. (unless they have one of those $10k Toto washlet toilets)

Overall you're on the right track, you might need to scoot your tripod a few inches or rotate your lens a few degrees but that's all. There's more than plenty of online resources out there (honestly just get a good understanding of what 1, 2 and 3 point perspectives are and know how to use a camera and that's all there is to it). go pick up a few magazines or browse the listings of a broker in your area that has the kind of photos you want to create, and pay attention to how the photos are composed, just copy their angles.

Edit: sorry if that came off a little too critical, best intentions.

Too critical?! I’m a wedding and portrait guy. I’ve been chewed, swallowed, and spit out a few times by critique. A few pointers certainly isn’t critical, to me at least. Thank you so much ! I appreciate it.

Honestly I do not do interior work at this point but all of the points mentioned above I would agree with. You're pretty much there, I would, however, skip the first exterior shot or edit the lawn a bit to make it look a little more tidy. It doesn't seem to flow with the rest of the photos and given RE listings are essentially an album you would probably want to see that continuity!

Doing great nonetheless!

Hi, First of all you really are mostly there like Jooowan said. I agree with all he said to you. If you go on youtube and look up Nathan Cool and Rich Baum there is a lot of great info on their sites for mixing Flash and Ambient (Flambient) into your photos which would create much better window results for you. Some photographers will tell you that you only need HDR software and that is good enough. My advice is learn both and when you get a Realtor that has high end listings you will be able to get them. I think there is a place for HDR but I personally don't like the half blown out window effect or the fact you cannot see what a light fixture really looks like. If someone just put a bunch of money into a remodel of their home and upgraded all the fixtures they would not be happy with them being blown out. I am not saying for you to do it every time but you should at least know how. One thing I will say about Rich Baum and Nathan Cool is you have to use them as a guide in learning the process and then do some experimenting on your own to really get an understanding. Sometimes what they say does apply to the example image they are showing you but will not work for every image. One example is a video of Nathan Cools where he puts a gray card on a mantle and shows you how easy it is to white balance an image. Well that does work sometimes but if the house has dark wood floors, not much natural light, no window coverings and mismatched color temperature bulbs in their can lights a gray card is not going to help you that much, especially if it is a long open space. This is where the help of flash can come in handy. Overpowering all that mixed lighting can make white balance much easier. Another example is we have shot older apartments where the living room is regular lighting but their kitchen has the old 4' lights which give off a green tint. Very difficult to balance that first shot of the living space with the kitchen in the background especially of there no window in the kitchen to be able to turn off kitchen light and use just ambient. As you already are a photographer and have an understanding of light and your camera it will not be that hard for you to get this. Good luck in your Real Estate Photography journey!

Yes, I agree with the guys that the composition is excellent and looks professional enough, but it's still worth working on the lighting. At one time, I also watched Rich Baum's video tutorials, they helped me build the same color for each of the images, which is really important for the realtor and potential buyers.