http://resnapshot.vht.com/

This was a sprawling $3 mil Green & Green style home with every inch of the home being meticulously hand crafted down to the last detail. We had two teams working, one setting a room and the other shooting. With painters just finishing up in some places, and furniture being dropped in at the last moment. We basically shot the whole house on super wide and long shots in-order to incorporate as much of the home as possible in each frame. With the exception of a unfurnished play room, laundry room, and small sitting area just off the front landing this house was covered to any Magazine Art Directors standards. After his (realtor) critique I went to his site and had a look at what he was accustomed to, and oh boy was it awful! I guess quantity wins over quality with some of these Realtors, and in my opinion its counter productive, less is more, and better is best.

I am forever scarred by seeing those images on Norm’s site, but I got a good laugh!

Doesn’t MLS stand for “Mostly Lousy Shots”

Thanks for sharing.

Thomas Bliss

Thanks Norm.

Just following up what Norm said. I get sent about a dozen photos a week of basically dumps. Homes that I would struggle to pull anything nice from as a photographer. You get to a home and the owners leave four cars in the driveway… nothing you can do about it.

But when I get a photo of a $1M listing, and it’s horrible blown out windows and almost pitch black in the rest of the photo, well that’s funny as hell to me and deserves a spanking.

Terry,

You raise an excellent point and it’s a lesson I learned since I produced this tour. I think Athol said it best during a email exchange he and I had. “There are bad pictures of good houses, and good pictures of bad houses.” Over the last year, I have marketed a number of homes which were just plain ugly. Sellers weren’t interested in repairs or staging, so what’s a guy to do? I took the listings, showed them as they were and sold them all. While I wasn’t always proud to display them on my site, we were able to find buyers and get the job done.

However, to be fair, possessing all the technical merit in the world will sometimes do little to improve upon what lies before one’s lens… What do you do if the house is, um, not so photogenic? I’ve had to shoot a number of places that should have likely been condemned, let alone severly repaired/cleaned/de-cluttered… I guess that is why you place you price-point a little on the higher side – let the “50-shots-for-50-bucks” guys scrap over the garbage.