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Category: Photography (page 7 of 7)

March 26, 2007

A Boston advertising photographer becomes a Boston real estate photographer — with stunning results

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Richard Riccelli fingered this New York Times article on real estate photography and related technologies (it’s behind a registration wall to make sure you know they don’t get it). Evidently, Richard had been impressed enough with my ideas about real estate photography to impress them upon the professional advertising photographer he hired to shoot his Boston townhome.

I read Richard’s reinterpretation of what I had said, and I think my ideas were considerably improved by the filtration. In any case, the photographer was impressed enough to repurpose his entire business to real estate photography. Richard highlights one home in particular, but the whole portfolio is excellent, an inarguable statement about what real estate photography can be.

My take: Virtual tours draw eyes at Realtor.com. People will watch videos, if only for the trill of watching “TV” on the computer. Poetic copy instills dreams. But nothing sells the buyer’s imagination on a home like a wealth of big, colorful, richly-detailed photographs.
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February 23, 2007

Video can supplement photos and virtual tours in a listing, but it can’t supplant them . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

However…

BtoB:

One day someone will be driving through a neighborhood and they’ll see a sign with a podcast URL. A few minutes later they could be sitting in front of the property, watching a video tour on their cell phone.

When you create a brand new category, you’re a category-killer by default…

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January 27, 2007

Podcast with Russell Shaw, Part Three: A certain convocation of politic Realtors

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

And this is the third of our podcasts with mega-producing Realtor and BloodhoundBlog contributor Russell Shaw. This segment is a freeform colloquy between Russell, my wife and business partner, Cathleen Collins, and myself. We hit a vast array of topics, including Russell regaling us with a story about how he once confounded 18,000 “stoned hippies.”

The language in this podcast is significantly saltier than the other two, so a word to the wise should be sufficient.

This podcast tends to roam all over the internet, so here are some links you can use to roam with us:

Thanks again to Russell for sharing so much of his thinking and his experience with us. Cathy and I delight in his company, but the man is such a geyser of great ideas that no one can spend time with him and not come away enriched. If I might presume to offer advice to you as a listener, I think you might be profited by revisiting these podcasts again and again. I know we will…

Nota bene: Mike Price of Mike’s Corner taught us an easier way to subscribe to our podcasts, either directly (for faster results) or through the iTunes store.

The Russell Shaw podcasts: Parts I, II and III

January 17, 2007

Digital real estate photography: Which photographer? Which camera?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

The current issue of The Specialist, the official magazine of The Council of Residential Specialists, insists that “99 percent of home buyers say that photos are the most helpful feature on a Realtor’s web site.” I’m pretty much convinced that 47% of all statistics are made up on the spot, but I suppose that recalcitrant one percent is visually impaired or something.

In any case, I have two things to say about photography:

First, Karl Hoelscher is starting a real estate photography business in North Phoenix, and he would love to have some help honing his marketing message. Give him a look at HomeSnapz.com. Even if you use your own photos for your web pages, super-hi-resolution professional photography can work wonders for your printed pieces and MLS listings.

Second, the article I mentioned in The Specialist is a wonderful example of really bad advice. As we talked about in BloodhoundBlog months ago, the two most important features in a camera to be used for everyday real estate work are a wide-angle lens and a fairly small image size:

Except for print reproduction, the best size for a real estate photo is 640 x 480 pixels — which is 0.3 megapixels. Ideally, your everyday camera should be able to produce that size image without post-processing. The photos on your web pages can be bigger than this, but not by much. If you try to load 20 images on a page, with each image weighing in at one megabyte or more, you’ll overtax most web browsers — well after you’ve overtaxed the patience of your audience.

What you want from a lens is not a long zoom but the widest possible angle. Most digital cameras have their widest angle setting at 45 – 55mm, if the lens were on a 35mm film-camera equivalent. A few cameras get down to 38mm. This is inadequate. What you want is 28mm or less — with reservations.

The features camera-makers advertise, megapixels and zoom lenses, are mostly useless for taking photos of homes.

So what does The Specialist suggest you buy? Cameras with long zoom lenses and massively megapixelated images — just exactly the Read more

December 11, 2006

When It Clicks

by

Realtor, Associate Broker

Author website

We rely so heavily today on the internet to market our properties, but with so much information available to the would-be home buyer, our on-line ads had better pack a punch. This audience will forever be just one click away from the next property listing, and our “special” home will be all but forgotten. Galen Ward talked about the peekaboo law of home photography, and Ardell had a great footnote on the subject. Of course, Greg Swann had his own 3000-words-or-less thoughts on the topic.

Steve and I have an escrow closing today on a home that is the poster child for taking thoughtful photos to effectively market a property. This is what the home looks like from the street:

Not very inspiring, I’m afraid. It just looks like any one of another 120 or so homes on the market in this zip code today.

Here is the photo I used in the MLS and on the web as the primary photo:

This accomplished several things. It followed the peekaboo law by showing just enough to get the audience’s attention, plus it was a cleansing process which eliminated those that were water sport-averse. And, as Ardell recommends, it told a story – The story of a home with a beautiful pool. In this case, that was the story. Nowhere is it written that the primary photo must be of the driveway, and yet I would venture a guess that 99% of the agents out there succumb to this trap. If the front of the home is inspiring, then by all means use it, but if there is something better waiting for you once you cross the threshold, why not make it known?

By the way, the buyer of this home found it listed on Realtor.com and wasn’t even aware that this neighborhood existed. She wanted first and foremost (drum roll) a pool. At the initial showing, she had mentally purchased her pool, and the rest of the home was just icing that happened to convey. Had this not been the first photo she saw, she likely would have clicked on by.

December 2, 2006

Thoughts on a New Years Resolution

by

Associate Broker

Author website

Each year, many of us look back on the previous year with thoughts on how to improve ourselves in the coming year. Well… not all of us – but most of us, at least.

Sometimes we look to improve our looks. We vow to eat less and exercise more.

Other times it might be a resolution of faith… or charity. The giving of ourselves in service to others.

This year, I am making a commitment to increase my value to my clients. Not my apparent value (although the recognition would be nice) but rather my true value. I am looking to provide a better return to my clients than previously possible.

In the past, I have tried to stay a step or two ahead of the pack with innovative technology… sometimes too many steps ahead. It wasn’t that long ago that while most agents didn’t have a website – I was running streaming video tours of my listings. Not the crappy ones, mind you – good ones. I spent over $15K to have the equipment to produce quality video… and that’s exactly what I did. For a while, anyway.

In my opinion, however, quality still photography is a better medium than video… and if you combine still photography with a flash presentation complete with voice-overs and background music – you’ve got the best of both worlds. A multimedia presentation that the viewer can control.

I am a firm believer in the concept of communicating the features and benefits of a particular property to buyers and their agents, alike. I believe it serves my clients well to have the best exposure I can give them. Here is a draft of a presentation I am working on now. Keep in mind that it’s not finished… and the audio will have to be re-recorded as I did this while still feeling very ill and short of breath.

www.2561WoodCreekCt.com

So set your sights on the New Year soon to be at hand.

What will YOUR resolution be?

September 26, 2006

Blogoff Post #70: Using event coverage to good advantage . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

From SEOmoz blog, a definitive resource, how to use event coverage attract readers to your real estate weblog:

Ingredients: A popular, well-attended event with a particular industry theme and a passionate writer who makes friends wherever they go.

Process: Go to the event, cover as best you can — make friends, take copious, detailed notes, go to the bars afterwards, shoot photos and videos and, most importantly, let everyone there know that you’ll have the coverage on your site in the next few days. Time is of the essence here, but once you’ve got a great writeup (with photos!), send emails to your event contacts to help boost the buzz.

Results: Depending on the size of the event and the people you form connections with, this can drive thousands or even tens of thousands to the site. Covering something private (with permission), exclusive or underground can be even more rewarding, though big, public events often make an easier starting point.

This sounds like The Property Monger to me. And I am very interested in hearing about going to bars…

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August 4, 2006

Real estate photography snapshot: Composition is salesmanship . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Coming back to this, I wanted to spend a few minutes on photo composition techniques. That’s almost absurd: Who doesn’t know how to take a picture? Almost everybody, it turns out. We’re not talking about Ansel Adams levels of perfection, we’re talking about taking real estate photos that sell the property but don’t require a lot of back-end effort on your part. That means that we want to take a photo we’re ready to show off as-is, not one that requires cropping or re-touching in PhotoShop.

Here’s an obvious rule first: A camera is not a gun, and a house is not its target. If you look at published real estate photos, again and again you’ll see the house centered in the frame with miles and miles of do-nothing sky above it. This is wrong. Fill the frame with whatever it is you’re drawing attention to. If you think you might want to crop the image later, why not crop it now by filling the whole frame?

We like drama, so often we’ll get in really close at a point of view much lower than normal (it’s called crouching or kneeling; even old people can do it). In this case we also blasted hard with an electronic flash — even in bright sunlight outdoors — in order to bring out the details that would otherwise be in shadow.

Another way to lend drama to a scene is to go higher than eye-level and look down. Most digital cameras have a video viewfinder, so it’s easy to frame photos while holding the camera overhead.

If the ceiling is interesting, it should be in the photos. The wide angle lens on your camera will include the floor and ceiling of your interior shots, so you should be watching for things to bring out. Here in Arizona, ceiling fans are worth money, so we make sure we show them off.

Here is the value of a very wide angle lens: We can see this whole bedroom in two photographs. The human eye is much more adept at apprehending visual information than any camera. Our eyes-forward range of vision is Read more

August 2, 2006

The Long Tail in real estate photography . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Chris Anderson at the Long Tail weblog on how switching from film to digital media changes movie acting and directing:

“I think shooting in digital changes acting as much as film changed stage acting, or as sound changed film,” said Bill.

Why? Because film costs a lot and must be used sparingly, while digital tape is practically free. The difference between the scarcity economics of film and the abundance economics of digital is, as Bill put it, “the difference between pointing a loaded gun at someone and a toy gun. You point a loaded gun at them and they’re going to act different. A film camera is a loaded gun. Digital is not.”

The principle is the same for real estate photography: If you’re not paying for a photographer’s time, nor even for film and processing, you have no reason not to take a lot of photos and simply toss the ones that don’t work out.

Man! That Long Tail is everywhere!

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August 2, 2006

Real estate photography snapshot: Choosing a camera . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I keep meaning to write about real estate photography, and I keep not getting it done. Let’s consider this a first cut, to which I may return more than once.

Mark Reibman of Rain City Guide has written two great posts on digital photography for real estate, and we can only pray that he does more. I lack his talent, but the wonderful thing about photography is that quality can be an emergent property of quantity: Any one photo I take might stink, but if I take 500 shots, one of them might accidentally kiss the forehead of greatness. Film and prints were cheap, but digital photos are next door to being free. We can take lots and lots of photos and cull down to those that present the property in the best possible light.

Camera selection is always a problem. The two most-advertised features of digital cameras, mega-pixels and zoom lenses, are the two you need least.

Except for print reproduction, the best size for a real estate photo is 640 x 480 pixels — which is 0.3 megapixels. Ideally, your everyday camera should be able to produce that size image without post-processing. The photos on your web pages can be bigger than this, but not by much. If you try to load 20 images on a page, with each image weighing in at one megabyte or more, you’ll overtax most web browsers — well after you’ve overtaxed the patience of your audience.

What you want from a lens is not a long zoom but the widest possible angle. Most digital cameras have their widest angle setting at 45 – 55mm, if the lens were on a 35mm film-camera equivalent. A few cameras get down to 38mm. This is inadequate. What you want is 28mm or less — with reservations. The Fuji FinePix E500 shown in the sidebar is an excellent everyday real estate camera. It gets down to 28mm, which is very good for most rooms. The flash recycles fairly quickly. It will do 4 megapixels at the high end, which is good enough for lower-quality print work. But it will also work Read more

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