Photography For Real Estate

It’s now 2012 in Greenwich so the voting for the PFRE Photographer of the year is over. Congratulations to Dave Rezendes of Dave Rezendes Photography, Inc. of Honolulu, Hawai’i who was voted PFRE photographer of the year by PFRE blog readers. Dave’s stunning image is of a home in Honolulu designed by Long and Associates AIA, [...]

This is a special week between holidays where, there’s  time to think about what happened  last year and how you are going to try to do it better next year. Looking Back  I am continually amazed at how much I enjoy doing this blog. I enjoy it more every year and 2011 is no exception. [...]

Chad Jones sent me a quote from one of his best clients: I want you to honestly tell me if virtual tours are in the way out of fashion because I have been on the phone with realtor.com complaining that no one is looking at the tours from their website on most all of my [...]

Today dpreview.com posted a series of  interviews with five of the top architectural photographers in the US: Alan Blakely – blakelyphotography.com Chip Allen – chipallenphotography.com Kirk Gittings – gittingsphoto.com Scott Hargis – scotthargisphoto.com Treve Johnson – treve.com Apparently they will be interviewing other architectural photographers in the future.

Malia Campbell sent me this link to her video that she shot for the people that own the property in Ronda, Spain (be sure to view this full screen) where Scott Hargis did his recent workshop. I love the soft relaxing feel of this video. I especially like the underwater shots in the hot tub [...]

Michael Stentiford principal at See it Now Marketing Solutions Ltd sent me this video that his tream did for Michele Alexandrou of Smallacombe Burnside of Adelaide Australia. Michele was 1 of 4 agents completing for the right to sell a large apartment development. As Michael describes it: We got approached by one of our agents who [...]

Thanks to Zephyr McIntyre for sending me the WSJ article on the sale this summer of the highest priced home in the US. The Spelling Manor a 57,000 square-foot Los Angeles mansion built by the late TV producer Aaron Spelling closed in July 2011 for $85 million, or 43% off its $150 million asking price. [...]

Thanks to Dave Williamson for passing along this great article on why sensor size matters. I’ll never forget  when I moved from a CoolPix-995 (3.1 megapixel tiny sensor) to a Canon 1Ds (full frame 11.4 megapixel). The images from the 1Ds were so magnificent, amazing and detailed I would spend hours looking at them in Photoshop. With [...]

Heath Cowart Just sent me a wonderful little video commercial that he and  real estate broker David Holloway created to promote David’s brokerage and video work. Heath says: The idea was David’s. He created a storyboard and I found the actress and location. We used another video that I shot for David last summer to [...]

Thanks to PFRE reader Chris Wood for passing along this article in the Houston Agent Magazine about a real estate so bad it has gone viral. What a way to get exposure for your listing. Any listing agent that has ever listed a home that has an uncooperative tenant in the home while it is [...]

I noticed that there are significant price reductions on the 5DMKII at both Amazon and B&H. I thought they are significant enough that I shoud pass this along. Amazon - Body only for $2175 USD B&H (Sale is over now)- Body only with SanDisk 16GB Extreme Pro CompactFlash Card & Lowepro Adventura 170 Shoulder Bag & [...]

Nadia Gottfried,  a Calgary real estate photographer, sent me a slide show that she created with Animoto that she is using to promote her business online. Nadia, is very excited about how easily she could create a little video with music, text and some of her listing photos. I like the general impression this gives. [...]

Dan Achatz, a long time Seattle real estate photographer has expanded into video. Yesterday Dan pointed out to me yesterday that he has a new website that focuses just on marketing real estate video. I asked day what his perspective is on the market for real estate video in the Seattle area. Dan said: It’s [...]

Several years ago, I pointed out John Harrington’s great book, Best Business Practices for Photographers. Since that time he’s put out a second edition that has even more great information on photographic business practices so I think it’s worth pointing out again. I highly recommend John Harrington’s book even though it’s aimed more towards the [...]

Herb at Tourfactory.com gave me a free tourfactory.com tour to contrast how tourfactory.com tours look and function differently than the pfretour.com tour I’m using. I have to say that design wise Tourfactory.com tours are the very best looking still tour design that I’ve ever seen. No exceptions! If you are using just still photos tourfactory [...]

Malia Campbell finished the video that she shot for my Snoqualmie Ridge (WA) home today. My wife Levi and Jenny our Realtor are still tinkering with the words in the narration at this hour but I like the video and I like Malia’s style. I have the YouTube hosted video embedded in my pfretour.com property site. [...]

Many years ago there used to be a bumper sticker  they sold here on Maui that read “Ho-hum, another shitty day in Paradise“. Last night we arrived on Maui for a little sun break. About this time of year in the Northwest you tend to forget what the sun and warmth from it feels like. [...]

From CNN.com: “You might think that if anyone would know how to use a QR code, it would be college students — a demographic that is immersed in technology and bombarded by marketing. But a recent study found that nearly eight in 10 college students had no idea what to do with a QR code. [...]

Levi and I haven’t sold a property of our own since 2006 but this weekend we are putting our furnished rental in Snoqualmie, WA on the market. Putting this property on the market gives me a chance to “eat my own dog food” in the process of marketing the property. We’ve spent the last week [...]

Heath Cowart who works in western North Carolina sent me this example of a life style video project that he recently did for Beverly Hanks and Associates, a large broker in his area. Notice that the Beverly Hanks website from page has a 3:50 clip from Heath’s complete 16 min live style video. Heath points [...]