The latest home I photographed was in Mountain Brook for Lee Marks of Realty South. This amazing 5 bedroom 5 1/2 bath home was very impressive! Check out some of the photos below and to see more photos and learn more about the house check out the official listing on Realty South's website!
Real Estate
119 Carriage Maylene AL - Residential Real Estate Photography /
I recently photographed a house in Maylene for ARC Realty age Michael Murphree. The home had been thoroughly updated and was really quite impressive, but had sat on the market for sometime. Michael was brought in to see if he could get things moving and finally sell the house. His first order of business was to hire me to come and redo the photography. The previous agent had done the photos herself. Needless to say (but see for yourself below) there’s a little bit of a difference between her’s and mine.
Now, I won’t take ALL the credit, but within two days of the new photos going online there were two offers on the house and a bidding war commenced! Nothing else had changed. The price was the same. The house was the same. The only thing that changed on the listing was the photos!
Take a look at the photos below and if you’re selling a home give me a call to get the best real estate photography in the Birmingham area! (Click here to view my real estate photography portfolio)
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My Photos
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Agent Photos
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2833 Cherokee Rd - Birmingham AL Real Estate Photographer /
As promised in my post on "blue hour", here is complete post on this amazing home for sale in Mountain Brook, Alabama. I photographed it for Lee Marks of Realty South and you can see the complete listing here. When selling high end luxury homes great photography is a must. The available pool of buyers is quite small and they are very discerning. I work hard to show off the home in the best possible light without modifying how it actually is. I think the results speak for themselves!
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Need high quality real estate photography in the greater Birmingham, Alabama area? Give me a call today!
Daylight vs Blue Hour for Real Estate Photography - An Amazing Difference /
Recently I photographed a rather large and very expensive home for sale in the upscale Mountain Brook area of Birmingham, Alabama for one of the areas elite real estate agents (full post on the home coming soon). This 8,000+ sq ft home is selling for well over a million dollars. The potential pool of buyers for this home is quite small. To capture their attention you must make your listing stand out in a major way. Having a professional photographer, especially one that specializes in architectural photography such as myself, photograph the home is a major step in that direction (see this post on the differences between professional and amateur real estate photography). However, as good as it is to have professional photos done, the impact of the photos can be kicked up a notch significantly. Some of you may have heard of the "magic hour" as a photography term. This is the hour before sunrise and before sunset when you get beautiful warm light. Many photographers will tell you that this is the best light and it's when many concentrate their shooting. I'm not disagreeing with this at all. In fact, I too have scheduled many a shoot to fit these times to get amazing light. When it comes to real estate and architectural photography, however, there's a time that's even better. It's called "blue hour" (this is a bit of a misnomer because it's actually about 15-30 minutes tops). This is the time just after the sun has gone down completely. There's a little orange on the horizon but mostly the sky has become a deep, deep blue. This is the time when a building or home, well-lit with artificial lighting can really shine. Using multiple exposures of many seconds to tenths of seconds composite together you can create an image that's stunning and attention grabbing.
The key to this technique is timing. Shoot too early and the lights of the home or building are washed out by the sunlight. Shoot too late and the sky is black and the powerful colors are lost. The window is narrow. You have to be in position and ready to shoot, then move quickly to get the images. Make a mistake and you may not have enough time to get it corrected. Because of this, and because you usually have to go back out after taking the daylight shots, very few photographers use this technique. However, if you want your listing, advertisement, or professional portfolio to really jump off the page or screen, there's really no better way than a blue hour image.
For this house I did the conventional daylight shots and then came back several hours later to do the blue hour shots. Below you can see the conventional images next to the same scene at blue hour. The daylight shots by themselves are ok but when you see the two side by side the difference is striking! One thing that is critical to point out, when it comes to real estate photography, it's very important to accurately represent the property. There are some photographers that will add "up lighting" with strobes. This is fine for illustrative or editorial images (and something that I do), but when selling a property, the addition of lighting could give a buyer a false representation of how the home actually looks. For that reason all the light you see in the images below was actually present in the scene. No lighting was added by me.
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Why Hire a Professional Photographer for Real Estate Listings /
I think most people would agree that buying a home is a major purchase. It’s typically the largest investment most people will ever make in their lives. Houses cost a lot of money. Buying and selling them can be a complicated transaction with many people, documents, and legal nuances involved. That’s why it’s important to have a skilled and experienced real estate agent to help home buyers guide them through the process. Many real estate agents have gone through years of training, ups and downs, and have seen and dealt with all manners of challenges in the home buying world.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - I use special camera color calibration targets to ensure accurate colors in the photos.
Much like experienced agents, experienced professional photographers (especially those specializing in real estate) have years of training and experience. They have cameras, lenses, lighting, tripods, software, etc, that are especially suited to the challenges of architectural photography. They’ve experienced and dealt with all manners of challenges to creating the perfect image to showcase a home or building.
The viewfinder of my camera has a special screen with gridlines specifically made for architectural photography. This combined with a tripod that has a built in level, helps me achieve images with straight vertical lines. Something that's hard to accomplish by eye alone.
Just as most professional photographers are not real state agents, most real estate agents are not professional photographers. However, all too often the agents try their best to fulfill that role themselves. Whether it’s with their smart phone, point and shoot camera, or even high end digital SLR, many do the best they can to photograph their listings. But the agent wouldn’t try to be the home inspector, appraiser, mortgage officer, closing agent, or title attorney. So why are they trying to be a photographer?
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - This image was created using two radio triggered strobe units, mounted off camera, and color calibrated for accurate representation of the room. The light and exposure are balanced to show off the greenery outside. The angle and positioning of the camera are precisely adjusted to ensure straight lines and a viewing angle that best shows off the rooms space.
In today’s market, quality photos are essential to marketing real estate. Home shoppers have less free time than ever before. The internet has given them the power to greatly narrow down the list of homes they will tour in person. This saves both the buyer and agent time by not running all over town looking at homes that were never a good fit. The way they do this is by looking at photos taken of the listing. In our fast paced, information saturated world, positive and negative impressions are made in nanoseconds. Shoppers look at the photos of a home and decide before ever reading a description, caption, or even fully processing the photo, whether or not to look at it any further. This is why it’s so critical to have good, quality, and impactful photos of the home.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - I bring in lighting equipment that allows me to brighten up the room without loosing the detail and color outside coming in through the windows. Cameras are fooled by the light through the window resulting in dark interiors. My use of manual exposures and supplemental lighting compensate for this.
The real world practical benefit of homes photographed professionally is that they get more online views, sell faster, and sell for higher amounts. A study by the Wall Street Journal in 2010 really drives the point home.
“ At the closing table, listings with nicer photos gain anywhere between $934 and $116,076–as measured by the difference between asking and final price” - Wall Street Journal
My own experience has born this out. Often, I get called in to photograph a home by a home owner or agent frustrated at the length of time it’s taking to sell the home. They need to change things up. So I’m hired to come in and rephotograph the listing. To this end I’ve heard time and time again how homes that have sat on the market for months or even up to a year will get offers within days of the new photos going up.
“Homes photographed by a professional garner 61 percent more online views.” - Marketleader.com
While it would seem that hiring me to photograph a home costs more than the agent doing it themselves, the numbers show that the opposite is actually true. With professionally photographed homes selling faster and for more money, both the agent and the homeowner actually profit. In this situation a photograph is worth much more than a 1,000 words. It can be worth thousands of dollars.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - The master bath is one of the most important rooms in the house. Having it well photographed is a major plus in grabbing the attention of shoppers.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - I used supplemental lighting to balance the light outside with the light inside the porch. I choose an angle that would best convey the size of the space.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - The kitchen is also critical to show off in the best possible light!
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - Another master bath. Choosing a good angle helps straighten the lines in the scene. Color control and calibration shows off how the room actually looks instead of having an odd color cast.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - A common mistake non professionals make is taking every image from a standing position. Lowing the angle gives the viewer the feeling of actually sitting in the space as if they were in one of the chairs. This helps them to imagine themselves actually in the space.
Agent photo top, my photo bottom - Rooms with large windows are tricky. They are hard to photograph because the camera is easily fooled by all the light coming in. The result is a room that's too dark. I used manual exposure control and strobes to prevent this from happening without making the windows too bright.
Click the links below to view more of my real estate portfolio.
Blue Hour vs Daylight for Amazing Real Estate Photography
2833 Cherokee Rd Mountain Brook
5558 Parkview Cir Birmingham, AL