Interiors
Your’re selling a lifestyle. Bring it to life.
To really make an impact and stand out from the competition, and to do go the extra mile with the marketing of great-looking homes, learn to take fantastic interior photos or hire a professional!
Once you’ve prepped your client to ready their property for the camera, it’s down to you to make it all happen. Here are some tips, techniques and tricks for you to use, that will transform the way your images look.
SHOOT LOW
Take a look at magazine photos of interiors, and professionally-taken country house photos, and you’ll probably notice that they’re are mostly taken from around waist height - I’m around 6’5” so my waist might be a little higher than someone who is shorter - which is a little less than half the height of a modern room. You’ll find this a much more pleasing angle than if you do as many agents do, and stand with your digital held in front of your face. Look through any property portal and you’ll even see interiors taken when from above the head, with the result that they have the appearance of a still from a security video, rather than that of a marketing photo that’s supposed to attract buyers!
TRIPOD
For the best interiors, use a tripod. You need one of these because, particularly when using an SLR, you’ll get better property images by using a small aperture in order to make your rooms appear in focus throughout their depth of field, which means that you’ll have to use a slow shutter speed, which in turn means that you won’t be able to hand-hold the camera without the photo being blurred by camera shake; hence the need for the tripod.
DON’T USE THE CAMERA’S BUILT-IN FLASH…
... if you do, your images will mostly look terrible. Built-in flash lacks the power of flashguns that can be mounted into a camera’s hot shoe, so the parts of the room that are furthest away will look much darker than the areas that are close by. The aim should be to try and balance the light throughout the room. A separate flash with the ability to direct the light upwards will give you the ability to bounce light off of the ceiling, so that it’s more evenly distributed around a room. If you use a tripod, you’ll be better able to use ambient light in a room, so that the light from the flashgun will only be needed to fill in the dark areas. Indoor lighting is best turned on - turn on as many of the property’s lights as are available to you. But for really terrific results (for examples take a look at my site http://www.hello-photo.co.uk) for your best looking houses, take 5 exposures at 2 stop intervals and layer them together in Photoshop. Doing this will give you the ability to photograph the view outside of the window as well as the room’s interior. It’ll also mean a photo shoot will take much, much longer than usual and that you’ll need some training and understanding of workflow - all of which I can help you with - see http://www.doctor-photo.co.uk and hit the ‘Training’ button.
TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS
Shifting your angle just a couple of centimetres to the right or the left can radically change an image. It’s amazing that minute differences in a shooting angle can make the difference between a good photo and a great one. The thing is, that it’s not until you’re able to see the images on your VDU that you can appreciate the difference; so take lots of photos, and you’ll be surprised that there will nearly always be one that is outstanding when compared to the others. The more the merrier - just dump the ones you don’t use.
LOOK AROUND THE EDGES OF YOUR VIEWFINDER
Many people look only at the centre of the viewfinder. However, when you take a little more time and look around the edges too, you’ll start to notice things. You’ll see out-of-place objects which might be easier for you to move before taking the photo than to have removed digitally once you’ve see the mistake on your VDU.
CORRECT YOUR IMAGE IN PHOTOSHOP
Walls should appear to be vertical, not (as most do) angled. Lens distortion combined with a camera that is held so that it points slightly toward the floor, will result in the tops of the walls to both sides of the room appearing to slant toward each other. This effect is easily corrected in Photoshop - or you can send it to http://www.doctor-photo.co.uk. You’ll see an amazing difference in the corrected image - much more professional looking.
AIM TO INCLUDE A ROOM’S MAIN FEATURES
If a room has an attractive fireplace, or an attractive window, then it would be great to be able to include features such as these, because they are the small things that help differentiate one home from another.
USE PROPS
Don’t be frightened to suggest to a client that they buy-in fruit and/or flowers to create splashes of colour, especially where the decor is neutral. Better still, they could take professional advice on the presentation of their property. If they do, then your photos will be more likely to look great, because of the effort taken to prepare the property - they’ll get a better price, faster; you’ll look professional because your advice will have encouraged them to think positively about their property’s presentation. What’s more, other prospective clients will see that your houses look better than those of other agents and they’ll want you to market their homes as well. Success breeds success. And believe me, if you take all of these tips to heart, 37 years as an agent tells me that you WILL succeed. It’s one thing saying you care but quite another to demonstrate how much you care by taking the trouble to GET IT RIGHT!
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