house photography

#9
house photography
while getting a print framed a few days ago, another customer saw the said print, and started conversing w/ me.
asking me if I was a pro, etc, etc, etc.

long story short, he's selling his house, and he wants me to shoot it.

now I asked for photos of his house if he had any, so as I can get an idea of how the lay out is, and what not. shots he sent me, seemed like they were done by a pro already, i then asked him, why not just use those.
he said, that they were shot by a "so called real estate pro" (his words not mine) and that there was no life in the shots...

hm...life? how can one portray life in house shots?
i know perspective has to be controlled, etc, etc, etc, and getting a nice bright interior shots are key, BUT, not im thinking, why shoot w/in the box
why not bust out my fisheye, and screw the perspective...

it might hurt his sale? will it entice ppl to see his place more so than normal shots?

and then there's price. I've never done shots like these before.
im probably gonna undercharge.....

so I ask everyone here...what would you do?

Well I'm not an expert on this by any means (although I did do a series of new homes and refurbished many years ago) but generally viewers don't want distortion and curved walls etc. You could add 'life' by having things like a log fire burning or similar, mood lighting, a coffee piping away and maybe an open book and spectacles (the owner has just left the room for a second) in the foreground or something like that... maybe cheesy but I would guess to make it welcoming and lived in.

Sure you won't please all the people all the time, there may be a portion of the market who just want stark, 'technical' factual shots of what the rooms look like.

Yeah, dressing the house up is a large part of it - and generally you find most estate agents go as wide as they can to make the house/rooms look as big as possible (something that annoys me actually!). Maybe sit down with the owner and try to get more of a feel for what they want?

Go for it just for the experience

Agreeing with the above, making it warm, welcoming and lived in is vital. Equally, I would go wide, no matter how annoying Azz finds it as it will make the rooms look bigger, which can only help sales.

Good luck!

xx

thanks for the input all, the shoot didnt happen yesterday as the client postponed it until next week. He wants to do both in and out in the same day (originally he wanted to shoot the outside yesterday, and indoors next week, as he was getting some work done)

anyway, this gives me some time to iron out some kinks in my indoor lighting.
was also thinking of renting a PC lens for the d700 but it's still a toss up

Easy answer

To get more life into the photo of his house, set fire to it.

Bazza

just a bit of an update.

to start i rented one of these

(whatever's attached to the d700 LoL)
big mistake...cause it just made me want it more. it's sharp even at wide open..amazing lens.
anyway... I get to the place, and it's huge, bigger than I thought.
he wasnt really ready for me yet as he's still getting landscaping done, so I shot what I could. exterior shots were as good as it's gonna get. (maybe better next week since I had to work around the landscapers so composition wise, it could be better)

Interiors were a bit of a disaster. 12 ft high clg's, arches, and fancy wood work are all over, and it was a bounce nightmare. i thought my 2 540 fgz's would be sufficient, but I had no where to bounce, and the wide end on either the da* 16-50 or the nikkor 24-75 was not wide enough. I still got some usable shots inside, but, not good enough
nothing great.

so after spending the day shooting and figuring out for the next time around (this coming friday, we scheduled a 2 day shoot) I ended getting one of these



travelites from calumet
2 750 watt strobes
1 350 watt
wireless transmitters,
stands, umbrella's, etc, etc, etc

added an sb900 to boot also...

I should be covered...LoL
he has another house for me to do, so i gotta get a few 'money' shots on this..
cost a bit of dough..(got a discount on it too, since i was looking for another kit, they thought they had it, but they didnt, and they worked w/ me to get this one..)
but, it's an essential piece of equipment i'm gonna end up using a lot...(you gotta spend it to make it eh..)

got another day of busy shooting next week...and im gonna end up renting a 14-24 nikkor for that day...

great learning experience, but sure as hell hectic...

...will be heartbreaking giving it back. Hope you can post a few of the resulting shots here. Good Luck.