One piece of equipment that I’ve come to love is the Promote Control.  Most times my interiors are made using a series of exposures – usually 7 or so at 1.3-stop intervals. My Canon allows for automated bracketing of only three frames; so, in order to change the exposure settings and release the shutter I had to touch the camera, which in turn meant that most times there was movement that resulted in having to ensure that each layer was accurately registered above each other when it came to blending them in Photoshop.

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Wearing another of my hats, I’ve been quietly building a resource for estate agents and smaller property developers, bringing together in one place, numerous services that will help them to market themselves and their property. I’ve called it Property Creative in part because the main thrust is toward the creative side of property marketing – which is the part that personally I enjoy the most. The latest service to be added to the stable, is Virtual Staging.

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I regard every house I photograph as ‘special’. In fact my professional life, first as an estate agent and now as a photographer, is and always has been about making every house I photograph look the very best it can on the Internet and on paper whether that’s in magazines such as Country Life, or in an agent’s expensively-printed property brochure.

But now and again something extra-special comes along, such as this beautiful eco-restoration in Reigate, by Lochplace Building Conservation from Northern Ireland. What a privilege it was to to have been asked to capture something as beautiful as this for posterity.

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It’s interesting how taking different views of some rooms can create changes in ambience and feeling. In some cases there will be just, perhaps, one obvious angle to shoot in many rooms; but in others  - as in the gallery below – there will be a multitude of opportunities, each helping to create a different mood:

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It’s a real shame that many Internet property portals lack the facility to show portrait-oriented shots as opposed to landscape. To my mind this just demonstrates a lack of imagination and memory-loss as to the reason for their being – they exist to market property. I’ve shown below a couple of examples of how powerful portrait orientation can be where there’s a suitable subject – such as a hallway or a fireplace.

Portrait Oriented Photograph of a Hallway/Landing

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I really enjoy photographing new homes, particularly Michael Shanly’s.

The interiors are always perfectly lit and tastefully furnished. They really do know how to sell the lifestyle.

It’s always worth taking the time to get the lighting right. Interiors should look as natural as possible – I’m not a fan of the over-painterly effect that you sometimes get with HDR photography.