As you prepare to have your home photographed for listing on the real estate market, there are some important considerations to take into account. This document will hopefully give you a better understanding of the process and alert you to the things that can have the best impact on the results.
Obviously, the major goal of getting professional photography of your home is to help present it in the best light to your potential buyer. Many people start out looking for their perfect home by studying what is available on the Internet so these photographs likely will be the best introduction they will get. The potential buyer will be making a major decision when they see these photographs: go take a look in person, or consider something else. So, we want the photographs to capture the mood and essence of the home, with lights and views that will showcase the important selling features. For example, if your home has a beautiful back yard, then every room that shows that back yard through windows or doors should have photographs where you can actually see the yard. The implication here is that nothing should be in the way; if at all possible move or remove yard things that typically get stuck up against the home on the outside, like barbecues or smokers, lawn mowers, large plants that are in pots, etc. Another implication is that the windows really need to be reasonably clean; a dirty window shows up in the photographs! Also, you want blinds and drapes to be open or spread aside to allow as much of the view and light into the room as possible. If the blinds are bent or don’t work well, it’s better to replace them or at least remove them than to show them sagging in the photographs.
Another major consideration is light in the room; we want the room to be well lit, and we want the color of light in the room to be consistent across all lights. It is typical in homes for light bulbs to burn out and get replaced with something that doesn’t quite match the remaining bulbs. Some key examples are incandescent with frosting on the bulb that get replaced with clear bulbs. This would not be a problem except that it generally gets done over time so some bulbs are clear and others are not. This kind of mixture shows up very clearly in the photographs of that room. Another example is the conversion to compact fluorescent lights (CFL) that save energy; if this is only partly done in a given room the light in the room has a mixed color and doesn’t photograph all that well. And, to complicate the matter, there are different “color” CFL bulbs available (daylight, cool, warm) and if these are mixed in a room the results are less than ideal. So, the important message here is to ensure that all the bulbs in a given room are the same. And before the session make sure every light is turned on to help make the rooms look bright, airy and inviting.
Mirrors around and about the home as decoration tend to make both photographing as well as the resulting photographs less than ideal. Avoiding angles where the mirrors see something that really complicates the image becomes more and more difficult the more mirrors and the larger they are. An example is when a great angle to capture the room has one ore more mirrors showing something back across the room that looks odd or out of place (like a light or a window or even the photographer!). For the purposes of photography it is generally best to replace as many of these mirrors as possible with some other piece of art, like a painting or a photograph.
Ceiling fans are great to help keep the cooling and heating costs down on a home, but they don’t photograph well when they are moving. And when they are stopped, any dust or cobwebs on them really shows up. So, its best to clean the blades and make sure they are turned off for the photography session.
A quick preparation list:
- Store all yard tools and outdoor cooking tools unless they are a feature of the home.
- Wash all windows so the view is perfect.
- Open the blinds where possible, except when the sun is shining directly into a window, or when the window has an unsightly view.
- Clean, clean, clean! Dead bugs behind the curtains are a common problem. Dust and spider webs on ceiling fans are also a problem.
- Replace all light bulbs that are not working. Make sure that all bulbs in the same fixture are the same type and wattage.
- Make sure all the light bulbs in any given room are of the same type: incandescent, vs. fluorescent, vs. CFL, vs. LED.
- Replace mirrors with art where reasonable, or just store them.
- Turn on all lights, and turn off all ceiling fans.
Completing just these simple steps will enhance the pictures of any home!