Photography is more important than ever for marketing homes for sale. Most home buyers will not find the home they plan on buying at an open house that they just happened to go to. They will instead spend hours on the internet looking at information about houses and pictures of them.
Home with huge mostly white rooms are fairly easy to photograph. Smaller darker rooms are more common in the homes I sell. Using bright lights pretty much destroys the ambiance and character of the property. Using a little extra lighting and a slower shutter speed lightens the room but keeps it looking natural. Using a wide angle lens that captures a fairly large section of the room is also critical and in a room like this getting the white balance right so the room doesn’t look orange can be tricky.
As for those virtual tours that are slide shows they are kind of a waste of time especially if the photos in them are mediocre. A lot of bright lights makes rooms looked washed out and unnatural. A little video is nice to go with the still photographs but it is the photographs that will grab and hold the prospective buyers attention.
Before the internet we used newspaper ads and open houses to sell homes. Today we use photography to sell homes. The loft pictured in this post got a lot of views and sold quickly as compared to other similar units.
Hi Teresa – did you use a flash with this or did you merge layers of photos? (I ask because when I do ordinary available light photos, my windows are almost always blown out)
Karen – I used the light from the window and a couple of lamps. No flash and yes I merged multiple exposures. I sell a lot of lofts and windows are a big deal. it is important to not only show the window but often I need to show the view outside too.
That is a really nice photo. As are the other ones I have seen.
Thanks Barry. The condo was fun to photograph.