Photography 101 For Real Estate - Part 1

Real Estate Photography

Photography, writing or decorating are by definition areas free of rules. Nobody can or should tell you how to write or how to decorate your home and "looking good" is usually a label you are in charge with setting for your creations. That being said, it doesn't mean that you should not be considerate and pay attention to what "other people" like and think it looks good. After all, real estate is not so much an art as it is business and in business you have clients. It is the all-mighty client who now has the power to label something as "good" or dismiss it.

When it comes to real estate photography you need three things. Don't mind those who say you only need a camera. A smart phone with a camera is only as good as the average pictures you will take.  If average pictures are good enough for you then you may stop reading and move to something else. I wish you good luck with making a living as a real estate agent in today's highly competitive market where "average" is synonym with "out of business." Let's get back now to those three things you need for good real estate photography: a camera, a tripod, and a photo editing software.

Let's start with the reason you need a good camera, a tripod and a good picture editing software. We strongly recommend using a dslr camera. It might be true that smart phones nowadays come with good cameras, but none of them is good at taking pictures without natural light, like interior pictures. You can use a good smart phone camera for outside pictures in sun light, but you need a dslr camera that you can play with to adjust the right settings for interior pictures. You also need a tripod so your pictures are not blurry. They may not look bad on the small screen, but often times you will see how crappy and blurry the pictures really look like after you download them on a computer. The best solution is to use a tripod.

After you end up with the pictures on your computer, you have to open them with a good software and edit them. I have yet to meet a photographer who does not use Photoshop or a similar software to edit his or her pictures before making them available to their clients. Nobody takes perfect pictures. You can always improve the contrast or the brightness of a picture, or make its colors more vibrant. Taking the picture is only the first step on the path to great images. If you don't know how to use a picture editing software you can either learn or outsource it to someone knowledgeable.

We have learned in this first part of our real estate photography 101 series about the three things we really need to get a good start. We will cover in our next blog post a few tips and tricks on how to get great interior pictures. Until next time: happy shooting!