My Interview With Scott Sheppard at Inside Digital Photo

My interview with Scott Sheppard at Inside Digital Photo is online on Scott’s site and it will be available via itunes in a few days by subscribing to the inside Digital Photo podcast.

Photography For Real Estate E-book Now Available For Purchase

OK, the Photography For Real Estate E-book is ready for purchase and download. Just click on the link ad on the upper left side-bar. That order link will stay there.

I’m using is Paypal for order processing. Paypal will handle purchases with major credit cards or your Paypal account. Paypal will handle all the conversions from non-US currencies to US dollars. I’ve already had non-US orders so I know that part is working.

Also, I’ll be adding a “PFRE E-book” page just below the blog header similar to the “RE Photographer Directory Sign-up” page as a place to give me feedback.

Photography For Real Estate – My E-book Close to Release

Since before I started doing this blog two years ago I’ve been writing a book on real estate photography. The E-book has the same name as the blog: Photography For Real Estate. I am finally finished with it and I’ll be turning on the book order page this next Sunday 10/7. I’ve promised this book to so many people it is embarrassing that it has taken me so long to finish.

My goal has been to do is to distill the essential concepts from this blog into book form. I think this E-book will be a good resource for people getting started in real estate photography or perhaps those that have been the business for a short time. It turned out that doing this blog has been very helpful in refining the book content and understanding the scope and diversity of what people are doing in real estate photography. I’ve put a the Table of Contents and introduction here for potential buyers to review.

Since the potential readers for this book are all over the world just like the readers of this blog I’ve decided to make the book and E-book, that is downloadable in PDF form (5.3 MB). Also, since a large percentage of the potential readers of the book are likely to find this blog I’ve decided to for now only sell it on this blog. Perhaps I’ll sell it through Amazon and other outlets later on.

I’d be interested in feedback on how readers feel about E-books and if you feel this is a convenient way to purchase and read books. I have thought about making a laser printed Unibound (transparent front and back cover with hardbound spine) version available but since I cannot create these in any volume I’ve decided to not do this now unless I get a significant number of requests for it. Since none of the reviewers that have seen the book have complained about the E-Book form I’m assuming it works for most people.

Photography For Real Estate Book Shelf

I just implemented a Photography For Real Estate Book Shelf. This is, a list of books that I’ve reviewed some time on a past post or one of the blog readers has recommended the book. The list has links to amazon.com and if you purchase any of these books by clicking on these links some of what you pay for the book goes to support Photography For Real Estate. To get to the book shelf click on the pink button on the left side-bar. Thanks for your support.

And if you have any favorite books you want to recommend to PFRE blog readers let me know.

Real Estate imaging is About Quick and Good– Sometimes not Perfect

M. James Northen made some appropriate observations. My recent posts that give some references to info about the fine points of rather involved interior lighting should not be miss construed to mean that this is the way real estate photography is approached. On the contrary real estate photography must be done on a time scale that doesn’t allow the attention to detail that Nathanael Bennett describes in his LightSource interview. The phrase that M. James uses is the title of this post, “Real Estate imaging is About Quick and Good– Sometimes not Perfect”. I think this sums up the approach that real estate photographers are forced take. Here are M. James’s comments:

“There is a lot of discussion about getting the light right using speed-lights or studio strobes; while there is nothing wrong with lighting ….. Real Estate imaging is about quick and good – sometimes not perfect. I am going to sound like a pompous know it all and am willing to take the chance from looking at everyone’s pictures in the hopes that it helps more than insults.

“There is a book that everyone in this genre/industry should read – The confused Photographers Guide to Spot Metering – by Farzad – or something like that. I now that once a person truly understands how their spot meter works they will get better results. I shot probably 85% of my website images with nothing more than an accurate exposure and looking at the scene to see what was important in the light values. No speedlights … no strobes …. No reflectors …. NOTHING. Getting the windows is not everything ….. Conveying feeling is everything.

“I am not saying that these days I don’t arrive with enough gear to light or blow up Madison Square Garden, but I still like to leave as much of it in the truck as I can, including 5 more Vivitars which I am enjoying. I just finished shooting an assisted living facility – recognizing the range of the scene lets me use much of the available light and fill in holes with the speedlights rather than blasting it with strobes on stands. While Real Estate imaging is about the rooms …. It is also about selling and highlights and shadows illustrate a room to it’s best. I can evaluate a room pretty quickly these days …. But still use a meter to fine tune things …. And bracket in half stops either way – aperture and shutter.

“A weekend with Farzads book and really understanding spot metering and scene range – will raise the bar on a lot of shooters results.”

Good advice! Thanks M. James for keeping me down to earth.

Best Business Practices for Photographers by John Harrington

I wanted to highlight Aaron’s recommendation of John Harrington’s book “Best Business Practices for Photographers“. Sounds like a great Photography business resource. This sounds like useful for real estate photographers.

Photographers Legal Guide – By Carolyn Wright

Back in May of last year I pointed out that there’s a blog ( photoattorney.com ) that covers legal issues associated with photography. A few weeks ago Carolyn started shipping a book on the subject called “Photographers Legal Guide”. I purchased the e-book ($9.95) version and allthough I haven’t had time to read it from cover to cover (128 pages) I think it would be pretty useful for real estate photographers. The book gives some good basic business tips as well as covers issues like copyright, liability and contracts.

Photographing Architecture And Interiors by Julius Shulman

Today while going through some of my old books I ran across one of my favorites: Photographing Architecture And Interiors by Julius Shulman. Shulman, who is now in his 90’s, has photographed for many of the great American architects of the last 70 years. In particular Shulman’s clients were architects like Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano and Frank Lloyd Wright. Shulman is kind of the Edward Weston of Architectural photography. Frank Lloyd Wright said Shulman was the best architectural photographer that he had ever worked with. How’s that for an endorsement?

The book has essentially all black and white photos and the technical discussions are all about 4×5 view cameras and Hasselblads but the photographs are all stunning. I remember originally being turned off by this book when I got it because it didn’t seem technically relevant to present day real estate photography. But over time the elegance of Shulman’s interior and exterior architectural images has “grown on me”. He has many sequences of images taken at different perspectives or in the same place with different lenses that are very instructive. He has taught and lectured extensively about architectural and interior photography.

If you are serious about photographing Architecture this is a book you should spend some time with. Shulman may well be the greatest living Architectural photographer.

Interior Photography by Eric Roth

As you can see I changed the template for this blog today. I think this format with its white background is more readable than the black background I was using.

Yesterday I got a copy of Interior Photography by Eric Roth. I think it’s the best book I’ve seen on interior photography. All the books on interior photography I’ve found (including this one) are by professional photographers that make their living shooting for magazines. This is, in a way very different than shooting for real estate marketing. Yet most of the photographic problems are the same.

I find the advice on lighting and use of photo editing very applicable to real estate photography. Eric Roth gives an example of burned-out windows that he solves with multiple exposures and Photoshop. In a section called “The Precepts of Good Lighting” he says, “As with and artistic endeavor, there are many styles of lighting. The only rule is: Don’t look for rules to follow because there are none! In fact, someone who thinks there are steadfast rules is probably too limited in his or her approach…”

Another interesting aspect of interior photography that this book goes into is that professional photographers may times work with what Roth calls a “stylist”. I’d heard this term use by other professional interior photographers but never understood exactly what was meant. “Styling” is what real estate people call “staging”. Most professional interior shoots involve having a “stylist” bring in props and furniture to make a photo look good. Of coarse the difference is that in real estate the “styling” stays in place until the home sells. I always enjoy shooting a home that has been will staged either by a savvy homeowner or a professional stager.

Lighting for Interiors

My recent discussion on direct flash got me thinking about lighting alternatives for interiors. I went back through my copy of John Freeman’s classic book “lighting for interiors”. This book is essentially an illustration of interior lighting setups that in addition the final photograph shows the camera and lighting equipment placement that was used to create each image. The feature I like the most is the little narrative with each setup and photo that talks about how the photographer analyzed the light situation and the considerations for choosing each lighting setup. The images in this book are the kind of images you would find in Architectural Digest (my benchmark of interior photography).

A lot can be learned from this book. However, one needs to remember that real estate photography is somewhat different than the photography in this book and Architectural Digest. As a real estate photographer you don’t have the time to spend on each image as these photographers do. And you probably will not want to carry as much equipment as they do. These photographers don’t use compact digital cameras! Other than that your mission is much the same.