Portfolio
Make Hey! While The Sun Shines
February 28th, 2008 Photography, Portfolio, Rules of Good Photos No Comments »
If you’ve been following the plot, I’ve been going crazy over sunshine in the last week.
Anyway… yesterday after hours of tweaking I salvaged this from an overcast day.
It’s okay, but as I said yesterday it was fixing up dog food as meatloaf.
Today the weather forecast is off, and BOOM! We got sunshine baby! Fortunately the house is two blocks from my own house so after my frou-frou date breakfast with wifey I swung around and the first shot out of the camera is this one.
NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!
Filet Mignon!
Just compare the two photos. Which one makes you feel good inside?
Think the front was dramatic? Try the overcast vs sunshine shot of the backyard. I couldn’t even do anything with the backyard editing yesterday.
Pure natural feel good sunshine simply can’t be faked. I keep saying this over and over, the photos do not need to be technically perfect photos, we’re trying to create an emotion for the buyer. Real estate purchases for anyone except the most hardened investor, are highly emotional and positive emotion helps sell homes.
Raise the emotional tone, positive energy, feel good, use The Force…
Shootin
February 17th, 2008 Portfolio No Comments »
I’ve had a busy week with getting photo shoots done. I’ll get to covering them better tomorrow hopefully, but for now here’s a few of the choice shots.
30 Madison Street, Bristol, Connecticut.
“How did you even get that shot? Are you leaning out the window?!?”
Yup. Popped out the screen, leaned out and got the shot.
How big are the windows in the dining room at Unit #15 in the new Saddlebrook condo complex in Bristol, Connecticut?
Pretty freaking big.
(Look Dad, I rearranged the chairs slightly so no backs to the camera)
Still at #15 Saddlebrook.
Now you gotta know that those windows blew right out in the actual shot right.
Pasted the windows from a lower exposure onto the photo and repainted the framing.
I wish it worked so well every time.
Unit #16 at Saddlebrook in Bristol.
I cannot get enough of this kitchen shot.
I’m liking what I’m seeing at Saddlebrook. Decent prices for the size of the home.
Yeah it’s purple, but managed to pull off making it look airy and light.
This was 15 Sloan Street up in New Hartford, Connecticut.
Just removed the 4th chair here completely.
This was a nice room.
Removing the two huge ugly red armchairs from the foreground (you can see their hoofmarks in the carpet still) proved to be the way to open the room up and just scream space.
153 Tunxis Road in Farmington, Connecticut.
Is every single one of my photos this good? Well honestly no, but it’s always, always the goal. There always seems to be at least one perfect shot in every house that just begs you to go see it.
And that may be all you need.
Making Friends Is A Win
January 5th, 2008 Photography, Portfolio No Comments »
I got an email about a month from Rick and Judy. Very unhappy with their agent, very unhappy with their photos. Not enjoying the selling process at all.
We arranged to have me come down and shoot the house. 99% of the time sellers are amazingly helpful during photo shoots, they will do anything to make the photos the best they can. Rick and Judy were the prototype of the helpful seller. In fact slightly too generous in plying me with food and drink as a soda can had to be edited out of one of the photos, and somewhere in the living room is a plate of cookies that was thrust upon me.
Great great people, I had a lot of fun with them as we worked through the house together.
They had a lot of problems with being overpriced, though having worked down to $469,000 it seemed pretty much in the ball park. The photos just didn’t capture the house at all. I can fix that. 
The shoot went great…
With a couple weeks ticking on the listing, they asked me without any prompting to take it over once it expired, how’s that for an easy listing presentation. Though with my photos in play I just nod and smile knowing to never mentally cash those commission checks ;-)
When I left them on Saturday Rich and Judy were visibly more relaxed about selling, and they left the house as we had staged it for the Open House they had planned on the Sunday. Their agent suddenly had a new rash of interest once told I was coming in to shoot photos 
To cut a long story short, my photos didn’t even get chance to be uploaded as the offer came as a result of the Open House.
From Rick…
Hi, Athol:
Thanks for the good wishes. We have the inspection this Saturday and, if all goes well, we’ll close on 1/4/08.
Judy and I can’t tell you how much we appreciate all of your time and effort in photographing our home. The photos are absolutely beautiful and have been getting rave reviews from our family, friends and co-workers. I’ve been singing your praises, so, hopefully, you’ll get some referrals down the line.
The buyers came to the “Open House” on Sunday, liked the place, called their parents and their realtor, and then made an offer that evening. They’re currently renting, so they don’t have to worry about selling a home.
Let’s keep in touch. Once we’re settled into our new home in Glastonbury, Judy and I would like to have you and your family over for dinner. Although we’ve only just met you, we consider you a friend (as do some of our cats, which is no small accomplishment).
Best wishes for the holidays!
So anyway, that’s the story. I checked on the MLS today to see if they had closed, and they had. I’m happy for them it’s over.
But oh the final sales price… ouch. 
Oh and the plate of cookies in the living room. They are on the table on the bottom right of the photo. It bugs the heck out of me.
Before and After
December 11th, 2007 Photography, Portfolio 1 Comment »
Before…
Dust particles.
Timmy the Cat.
Arm chair?
Floral Overload.
After…
Decluttered the cushions and table.
Wider angled lens.
More light.
Warmer tones.
The Sun > All
December 9th, 2007 Photography, Portfolio No Comments »
It was unfortunately a bit of an overcast day for the photo shoot. I arrived, met the seller and he began showing me around the house.
We get about halfway through the tour when I notice a sudden glow of light through the windows.
I have to go shoot now.
Run to the car, pop the trunk.
Tripod DEPLOY!
Lucky Quarter ATTACH CAMERA!
Took three quick backup shots from the ground, then set the camera on delay and held the tripod overhead and just kept shooting until the sun stealthed behind the clouds four minutes later. Gone for the rest of the day.
There is a slight out of focus blur on the right side of the shot that bothers me, but the overall shot was the happiest in emotional tone. Never forget were selling the house, not the photographs. Imperfect but happy photo is better than a perfect but less happy photo.
A Few Halloween Photos
October 31st, 2007 Family Life, Photography, Portfolio No Comments »
Meh… screw the Feed Bag, we got candy happening!
The Top Producer..
Suckas just giving away candy…
Grandma and Papa’s front porch.
Jen.
The Top Producers older sister kept moving all the time, so had to use the flash on her…
Streetfighter Real Estate Photography - The Under $1000 Gear I Am Using
October 29th, 2007 Photography, Portfolio, Rules of Good Photos, Staging and Clutter 7 Comments »
I got a “what camera should I buy” question a day or so ago on the blog.
I have no clue.
Let me tell you how I got my current camera though…
New to real estate and having held a camera in my hands for about 4 hours total over my entire life, I went to my wife’s camera shop. In theory Jen is the family photographer, she has a fancy pants film camera that dwarfs mine.
Anyway, so I go into the shop, and wow what a collection of weird looking old guys with crazy hair. But its a camera shop, so this somehow relaxes me. So I walk up to old guy with Santa Claus beard and say;
“I’m going to be shooting real estate photos, what sort of camera should I buy?”
And he says…
“How much money do you have?”
…
I think it’s fair to mention that at this point, with the money still in my pocket before I brought the camera, is the point of having the most money I reach in this story.
…
Spending Money Phase One
Anyways I end up buying a Canon PowerShot SD800 IS 7.1MP Digital Elph Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Image-Stabilized Optical Zoom
Currently it’s on Amazon for $275. I also would recommend a Battery and Carry Case for it. Another $40 off Amazon. Also you’ll need a Memory Card another $40 or so.
That pretty much got me some straight out of the box point and shoot goodness. The Wide Angle lens is in laymans terms “moderately wide”. (28mm) So just fine for all purpose real estate shooting. I have discovered over time that perspective distortion is fairly predictable, and the camera packs fisheye distortion into every single shot.
Generally it’s pretty light, easily handled, can take about 340 shots on the memory card and the battery recharge time seems to be about an hour from completely flat. There is like a 2 photos left to go low battery warning and that is it. Be warned!
I can’t really comment on other cameras. Never used anything else seriously as yet. Been pretty pleased with it though.
Spending Money Phase Two
I do a lot of post shooting tweaking. My software of choice is Paint Shop Pro X2. Currently $80 on Amazon.
Here’s my earlier post on X2. Paint Shop Pro X2 - Oh My God “Graduated Blue”
My best advice is to take lots and lots of photos – of your own house if need be – and just play with the software over and over. If you’re using the Canon SD800 the fisheye correction is 30 in X2.
X2 is pretty close to Photoshop in what it can do, but takes a little longer to process images and start up. Also from what I’ve heard it’s simpler to use than Photoshop. The price is extremely appealing.
The free filters that come with it are positively godlike. I was unimpressed with “Sunlight” – then we headed into fall and it is simply off the hook for New England fall leaves. “Sunlight” simply rocks for exterior shots, “Brillance and Warmth” for Interior shots, “Graduated Blue” just astounding for editing blown out skies. All free with X2. Seriously good additions.
This version of Paint Shop also comes with a CD of video tutorials for how to use most of the features. Nice.
Oh and get good with the clone brush. Great for smoothing out dust particles. The sellers never clean their houses as good as they think they do.
Spending Money Phase Three
Tripod. Seriously, you just have to get a tripod. It saves a huge amount of fluffing about time setting up and lost time with “opps I moved” shots. I use Bogen / Manfrotto 785SHB Modo Mini Photo-Video Grip Head Tripod and I know you won’t believe it when I say it’s available on Amazon! It’s $80.
Nice and light, the legs are metal and everything else is a hard plastic. It collapses down to about two feet fast and easy. I gave up on pole shooting attempts after discovering that 90% of the time holding the tripod above my head was almost as good. (Three second delay is about right)
HDR shooting (I do this rarely) is all but impossible without a tripod.
The time saver is that you can set the camera and do a “what have we got?” shot, then move objects and lighting getting the shot just right. Also you can use a time delay and go point a light somewhere, or on occasion use my heaving bulk to block out a light source casting an odd glare or something.
Spending Money Phase Four
Lighting. It’s all about lighting. I went very cheap and dirty for this phase. See my Professional Quality Lighting post. I will add that Daniel Rothamel was 100% correct about the yellow tint to the halogen bulbs. It really bugged me once I noticed it. I corrected this by buying replacement “bright, white” bulbs at Wal-Mart @ $6 a pair.
These lights are to be honest cumbersome, and do of course require plugging in, which can result in leads snaking all over the place in the house. For some reason I’m unable to see bright freaking orange leads on the camera viewscreen. Thankfully I can fix that in editing.
That being said, the two rigs net 1000 watts of light that can just HAW-HAW-HAW-HAW your problems away. All for about $80.
Spending Money Phase Five
By this point I’d managed to produce some nice photos. So headed over to Shutterfly and printed up some little portfolios of my photos. I did a 5×7 booklet of 40 pages and they print and ship for around $25 each. You can do as few as 20 pages for about $15. Just great for “hey look, I can shoot good photos”. I tailored it towards bored agents sitting on the floor desk, and I’m getting good business from it already.
Either your photos are good, or they aren’t. If they are good, you don’t need to say much. If they are bad, nothing you say matters anyway. The 5×7 booklet page on Shutterfly. I am really really pleased with how well these came out.
Having these little booklets of my photos (only did this a week ago) has just released a huge amount of energy in me. I’m starting to generate real interest in other agents using me for photos from it.
Spending Money Phase Six
Get New Business Cards. Tripod + time delay + butterfly lighting + DIY = a much better agent headshot. Get funky with it. Anything other than the vanilla corporate sadist headshot. My “agent headshot” is the photo of me up on the top of the sidebar. Write a slogan on the front somewhere that sums up your business. Mine says;
Good Photos Sell Homes
Online buyers only look for two seconds.
Price and photos are 99% of marketing.
And I have a photo of a house printed on the back of the card. I’ll be the cats half brother – people actually like getting these cards.
I get them off Xpressdocs through Prudential for $45 for 500. I also snuck a variant of that photo under the radar as my official agent headshot and my “official Prudential” agent page went from about 1 hit a day to around 25. From nothing but a photo.
Spending Money Phase Seven
Wanting a little more lighting oomph on occasion, plus wanting it to be smaller and portable. The next step is getting a Canon HF-DC1 High Power Flash for Canon Powershot Digital Cameras. It’s wireless, so you can place it somewhere, or hold it, and the flash will fire automatically when it senses another flash. $89 currently.
I just added this, so not much advice on usage as yet. If you get a Canon camera, this is essentially your basic option. Canon cameras use a little light sensing pre-flash that triggers every other brand of slave flashes to fire a microsecond too early. (I learned this the hard way… bastards!)
My main worry is combating that blown out window look, so being able to really brighten a room to balance the light balance is the idea here.
Holy Mother of Expense Budgets! What’s The Damage?
$275 Canon Powershot SD800
$40 Battery and Case
$40 Memory Card
$80 Paint Shop Pro X2
$80 Tripod
$80 Home Depot Lighting Set
$120 Shutterfly Booklets (I did a bunch)
$45 Business Cards
$89 HF-DC1 Flash
= $849 Total
+ ~10% shipping
= $934 Grand Total.
So thats the story of what I’m using. There is no question that better gear exists, but for the money spent I think I’m pretty well set up. What I’m shooting is better than 99.7% of what I’m seeing on my MLS. Here’s some shots from todays shoot.
At some point I’ll double back and get an SLR as a “proper camera”. I do wonder in my private moments if Photoshop or Lightroom is really worth the wheel barrow of money. It all really started for me by writing a silly daily photo post about real estate photos that were bad. I really didn’t expect to start turning into a professional photographer – abet one in a specialized area and still working as much as a realtor on my shoots as a photographer.
Anyone can run out and get the gear, and to be honest, having a better set of gear now really helps. What really counts though, what anyone really gets paid for, is the effort in setting up the shot and then finishing it off in editing.
The Money Shot is you.
Portfolio Summary
October 28th, 2007 Portfolio 5 Comments »
Just a quick note to say that it’s an easy photographer trick to only show the very best shots from the very biggest and best homes to wow a viewer.
Only very few homes are photogenic like that though.
The real skill comes into play with homes that reek of low energy, and manage to raise the the level of attraction in the photo.
Some of my favorite photos look extremely average. These are the photos though, where the agents and even the sellers have asked me how I managed to make the room look so good.
Heres one to give you an idea…
I’m pretty damn good at this stuff.
Call me 860–202–3368
Bedrooms and Bathrooms
October 28th, 2007 Portfolio 3 Comments »
Not every home has ten photos worth of wonderful features, but you should use up all ten photo slots on the MLS.
So bedrooms and bathrooms it is…
Try and get some color in the shot, and declutter if possible.
All homes here are in the $200–300,000 range.
