Archive for the 'News' Category

Interviews With 5 Successful US Architectural Photographers

December 23rd, 2011

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.

Video of the Location of the Scott Hargis Workshop in Ronda Spain

December 22nd, 2011

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 [...]

Marketing For The Highest Priced Home In The US: LA’s Spelling Manor

December 20th, 2011

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. [...]

A Shitty Day In Paradise

December 10th, 2011

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. [...]

Bruce Willis Needs Some Quality Real Estate Photography for His $15M Home In Sun Valley

November 29th, 2011

Thanks to Richard Lamb of Snoqualmie, WA for pointing out that Bruce Willis is selling his home near Sun Valley (Hailey, ID). It was just listed last week for $15M. The article that Richard saw was this one on the King5.com site. Richard’s comment was. “I must say this is some of the worst HDR work [...]

Beware: Adobe Is Changing Their Upgrade Pricing For CS6

November 25th, 2011

Adobe recently announced that they are changing their upgrade pricing. The details are buried in this adobe post: …For customers who prefer to remain on the current licensing model, we will continue to offer our individual point products and Adobe Creative Suite editions as perpetual licenses. With regards to upgrades, we are changing our policy [...]

Amazon has PSE 10 for $45.98 w/Free shipping, or Download

November 25th, 2011

Thanks to reader CapitalImagePhotography for pointing out that Amazon has Photoshop Elements 10 for $45.98 with free shipping or download. This is 54% off the regular price. I have no idea how long this discount is for. My guess is that it will last through Monday 11/28 but I don’t know that for sure. If [...]

MagicPlan App Can Create Floor Plans By Photographing Corners of a Room

November 20th, 2011

About a month ago Scott Hargis pointed out the MagicPlan iPhone app to me because we were talking about improving the floor plan diagrams in the next edition of his Lighting book. I downloaded the app but it wouldn’t work on the iPhone 3S I had at the time. Last week I upgraded to a [...]

Australian Gold Coast and Queensland to Host 2018 Commonwealth Games

November 15th, 2011

Congratulations to our mates on the AU Gold Coast for winning the hosting of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Brett Clements and the crew at PlatinumHD used the announcement as an opportunity to take their new Red out for a spin. Brett says: The good, the bad and the ugly…This was shot at 5k and resolved to 2k using [...]

Adobe Halts Flash Plug-In Development For Mobile Platforms

November 10th, 2011

Via HuffingtonPost: On Wednesday morning, Adobe confirmed rumors that it will end development of its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers. Danny Winokur, Adobe’s Vice President and General Manager of Interactive Development, announced the decision in a blog post, explaining that the company will develop native apps for mobile platforms and will focus on the [...]

I’ve Survived Lionizing Both of My Macs

July 21st, 2011

For those of you holding back on the upgrade to Lion I thought I’d report that my two upgrades have been reasonably painless. I have a MacBook Pro which I upgraded mid-day Wednesday, the day of the release, and a iMac which I updated overnight Wednesday night. While I can’t say I’ve really have tested [...]

Long Time PFRE Reader Launches New iPad Product

July 5th, 2011

Long time PFRE reader Tim Furlong Jr. just told me he and a couple of friends are launching a new product… Check it out and checkout this awesome promotion video! It looks like a great product, I just bought one!

A Stunning Example of How to Use Stills and Video to Market a Home

June 29th, 2011

Quentin Bacon and Scott Hargis teamed up to shoot a stunning classic mid-century modern home designed by Don Sandy in Orinda, CA. Quentin and Scott’s client is Michael Thompson of Sotheby’s International. The finished official marketing site for this home is www.92sandhill.com. This site is a great example of how to market upper-end home. Plenty [...]

How To Triple The Number Of Showings For Your Listings

June 22nd, 2011

Through his photographer/videographer, Heath Cowart, I recently met Paul Wilander who is a top producing broker in Brevard, NC. Paul opened his own real estate brokerage (Looking Glass Realty llc) in November 2010 with the aim at providing his clients with the most effective, cutting edge marketing available. Paul’s experience is that professional photography and video are the [...]

Barbara Corcoran: Wage War Online With Professional Photography

February 21st, 2011

Barbara Corcoran is a mega-agent and one of the most quoted people in real estate according to New York Magazine. In a recent interview on the Today Show Barbara concisely summarizes the importance of “Waging War Online” by hiring a professional photographer if you possibly can! Her statements on professional photography are at 2:14 into [...]

Agents: Take Better Listing Photos or Hire a Professional!

January 28th, 2011

Kudos to St Paul MN Realtor®, Teresa Boardman, for her article in InmanNews titled “Take better listing photos, or don’t take them at all“. Teresa gives a tongue-in-cheek description of what agents should do with their point-and-shoot camera or cell phone camera they may be using to shoot listings with… break it with a sledge hammer! [...]

Scott Hargis Gets Coverage in The San Francisco Chronicle

January 17th, 2011

I wanted to point out that Scott Hargis and his work was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle last Sunday. The portraits used in the article are by Malia Campbell. Notice the great analogy that Scott makes in the beginning of the article between “looking hot” on match.com and “looking hot” on a real estate listing [...]

Our Thoughts Best Wishes Are With Our Mates In Queensland!

January 14th, 2011

Our thoughts and best wishes are with our mates in Queensland Trying To Keep Their Head Above Water! Just got a note from Brett Clements. Brett says, “we’re in a bit of shit at the moment. Our Capital, and our State is underwater. We’re trying real hard to get our head above water”. You can [...]

Breaking News: Portsea Mansion Ilyuka Sells For $27M AUD

December 14th, 2010

Well that was fast! It was just short of a month ago that I posted about the Portsea Mansion Ilyuka near Melbourne, AU that just came on the market for $20M AUD and the listing agents had spent $200,000 on a marketing campaign directed a millionaires around the world which included a 5 minute video promoting the [...]

A Short History of Real Estate Photography

November 22nd, 2010

Today is the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first browser and web server and ran both on his desk at CERN in 1990. I can clearly remember the first time, sometime during 1993, that I installed the Mosaic browser on my PC at Boeing and first started clicking on hyperlinks. [...]