Amazing what talking about real estate imaging and HDR photos will do for a guy’s blog. I have had over 625,000 visits (a slight exaggeration) to my blog in the last several days and almost all are to my previous entry, “Images for Real Estate Listings & HDR“. Seems that some Realtors, or those who are fans of Realtors, agreed with me that there are tons of hideous images floating around out there of people’s homes. Also heard from Realtors that shared horror stories of clients that lived in pigsties, but felt very strongly that their homes were in better shape and cleaner than most homes out there so they felt no need to clean house or even tidy up a bit.
To protect the innocent, no names will be mentioned in the following story. The following may not have even happened in Omaha, it might have occurred in Virginia. It might even be cobbled together from several experiences or situations. It might just be fictional. I just can’t be sure, my memory gets fuzzy from time to time.
A nice Realtor hires a young real estate photog who is a real up and comer. Newbie photog is warned about property he is going to shoot. Seems homeowner and his wife don’t care for one another any longer. Hubby gets bright idea that driving wife out of home could be to his advantage in divorce settlement.
He rationalizes that if she leaves the marital abode, he will be awarded said abode because he can claim she abandoned the property, leaving him all by himself to look after the house. He refuses to bathe, shave, shower, or brush his teeth. He also decides to not do any laundry, dishes, or vacuuming. Wife stands her ground and refuses to leave. Seeing he won’t get his way, he begrudgingly agrees to sell house. He hasn’t given up yet, and decides to stay in the house while such things as Realtor and buyer visits take place and Open Houses occur. He also decides it is a good idea to hang out while the aforementioned young and impressionable photographer takes marketing images of the house.
For those wondering, marketing images are those used by Realtors to market your house. They are the photos displayed in MLS listings, realty websites and home informational sheets. They are quite important, especially in this day and age of the Internet where most house hunting occurs. Most houses visited by buyers have already been seen by the buyer because of the Internet listings.
Homeowner refuses to vacate a room the real estate photographer is trying to shoot. Photog skips room and continues to next room to shoot. Homeowner follows and proceeds to plop down near middle of room. Photog goes to next room and once again is followed and homeowner occupies that room. Photog gets frustrated and has pow wow with Realtor. It is decided to shoot anything and everything whether homeowner is in picture or not.
I usually The photog usually shoots anywhere from 30 to over 100 shots of a property depending on size and level of grandeur. I shot The photog shot over 250 images that day. Many with the homeowner in them. The beauty of knowing how to retouch photos is that you can take a bit of this image, some of that one, etc. and produce some Frankensteined end result that looks great. The one thing that the newbie photog remembers most is stepping on something that stabbed through his sock and into the bottom of his foot. It was a very large crescent moon shaped toenail. No doubt the homeowner had decided to cut his toenails and let them fly wherever in his psyops campaign to drive his spouse from “his home”.
And people think us photographers just stand behind the camera and press the shutter, or as it is frequently called, “the button”. We don’t have to know anything other than pressing the button. I wish it was that simple.
Until next time,
Mark