Photo Shoot 1 — Two-Story Renovated Home

Transcript

Transcript of the recorded lesson. Recorded 2023, reviewed 2026.

Today we're going to be doing professional photos at this 2300 square foot two story home. So come with me, we're going to get the home set up and we're going to start shooting. All right, so first things first, let me look up the lock box code. This home is vacant. So there are no occupants. All right. As always keep the key, I always keep the key in my back pocket. So walk in in here. Want to make sure first that I don't track anything in the house if the flooring is really nice. It's not perfect so I'm not too concerned about taking my shoes off in this particular home.

All right. So now I'm going to start by turning on the lights. All right. So there's one. So this is a nicely staged home. Looks like a fresh remodel from a fix and flip company or person. So we got new appliances. Looks like a new kitchen. Looks like the pain of the cabinets. Anyways, looks really good. Staged homes are always easier or more appealing to potential buyers than a furniture free home. Let me check out what this... So this is the garage. It's really small. It almost looks like a closet. Good thing I checked is it's a bathroom. So that's why a lot of times always check even in closets through hallways you never want

to accidentally miss an important room like a bathroom. All right. So it looks like I got all the lights on down here. Let's go upstairs. I like how they have all the same color lights for the most part. There's a couple tungsten colored lights downstairs, but they're isolated into individual rooms, so no mix. But they got nice fluorescent looking bulbs throughout the home. Looks good. I like the gray color. All right. This looks like the master. Staged as well. So turn off the fan. Turn on the light. Ooh, this master bathroom looks nice as well. Very modern. All right. So we got the lights on.

Here's the toilet closet. There's nothing much to this. So I'm just going to shut the toilet closet and then I'm going to look inside the master closet. That looks good. Nothing too special. I'm going to leave it closed for now because when I shoot the bathroom, I'll shoot it with it closed and then I'll open it up and take a picture. I think it looks really clean and nicely staged. That fan's slowing down so I know that I turned that off. All right. So we went this way already. So let's finish up. Now fluorescent color bulbs. I think this is the color that must have came with the fan.

But with a gray color wall, I always would prefer fluorescent color wall. So if somebody asked me a recommendation, I usually tell them that depending on the color. Now in this particular closet, you have some built-ins right here. So I'm going to leave this open since this is a feature that's not in every single closet. A potential buyer might see value in that. So I'm going to take a picture with the closet open and then check here. Make sure that there wasn't a laundry room or something else separated right here. All right. Let's come back downstairs. Now I'll just do a quick check of the backyard before we get started.

Some of these back sliding doors are tricky. That says on, let me see if I can figure out how to open this thing. Okay. Down, because I pulled it up, it said lock. So I know that is unlocked. All right. Just need to open it. And I'm not going to step over here. It looks like they just planted winter grass and they may have sprinklers or something. I just don't want to track too much dirt into it. So we'll do this last. It looks good. I don't need to prepare anything back here. So I think that's it from the preparation perspective of this particular home.

So we'll go back out to the front, grab the camera and start shooting. All right. So we'll start here at our middle shot of the front, which is likely going to be the main photo that the agent's going to put on the MLS. For this particular home, since it is a two story, if I'm up this close, it's cutting off the top of the house. You want to avoid that. So we have a couple of options. We need to move back and also raise up the tripod. So scooting back, I can see the whole, the whole, the entire house. But what I'm going to do is also extend my tripod.

I usually don't use these lower legs too much. But for two story houses, it looks good. So you can see, let me zoom in a little bit. That right there looks like a nice composition. So I'm going to shoot it. I'm going to go left here. Now there's that electrical box, which isn't too appealing, but not going to be able to get it completely out of the photo. Just zoom in a little bit. Making sure not to get too much of that next door neighbor's house. Obviously they have a car in the driveway. It's okay to get a little bit of the neighboring houses. You just don't want the focus of the photos to kind of gravitate towards them.

Now here I'm going to stop right here. Zoom in a little bit. That looks good. All right. So now that I'm done with those far away shots, I'm going to lower my bottom legs on my tripod. And I'll probably get a straight on shot here closer for the walkway. I can see the door a little bit. Get some of the nice landscape here. I move in. Let's see. So the front door here. It's going to be hard to get a straight on shot of the door. If you look at that shot, it just doesn't look good. So either I do like to showcase a nice porch.

If I'm shooting this way, I see the neighbor's car, which is an option that's not too distracting. Or we can kind of shoot this way showing that there's a nice porch with the door. What I'm going to do is probably pick this angle here. We'll see. So we've got the windows. We've got the door. So you can kind of get an idea. You can see as I move the pillar, you can see how it looks stretched out in the corner. So I'm going to move it back a little bit so that pillar is not very distorted. Shoot that. That looks good to me. All right.

So let's move inside. And now this house has, doesn't have a wall. A lot of homes will have a wall on either side as you enter into the home. So I'm going to do a straight on shot just into the home from the vantage point of the front door. I'm just looking at that wall line on the right side to make sure that's pretty straight. Actually it does look crooked to me. That looks a little better. Like I said, it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be pretty good. You can fix any minor things in post-production. Now based on the staging of this particular room, I like the straight on shot probably

the best of this room. Just trying to center the furniture a little bit. Now depending on the furniture, you'll have, you only have so many angles to choose from. Now I have this, this corner I can shoot from. If I come all the way back, I'm seeing a lot of this lamp shade. What I'm going to do is go in front of the lamp shade, kind of lower my camera just so I can kind of get a good idea of this sitting space right here. My lines out. That looks pretty good. We have a nice view of the dining room. Now we didn't showcase how the stairs are right on the, as you enter into the house.

So we want to get a shot of the front door. That shows the stairs as well as the room. I'm going to turn in a little bit on the door because if you do the whole thing, you can see how it kind of looks a little stretched out. The distortion isn't as noticeable if I go in a little bit. That looks good. All right, so now we got this main area. So let's see. I'm going to move over here so we have a, we can see the entrance into the, you can kind of see a little bit of the kitchen. We have this staging piece.

I'm not going to worry too much about that. I think the better shot of this angle is probably just looking into the dining room and then the kitchen area. Let's see where do I want to go from here. I do want to showcase this nice staging that they did do at the home, this little nook area. So I'll get a shot. That wall is showing. So let me move in a little bit.

That looks good. I'll move on to the dining room. Let's start in this corner here. Camera height, is that pretty good? Yeah, that looks good to me. All right, let's move to the next corner. Now from here we're seeing the garage and that mini bathroom area. I want to shutter that button. All right, let's move on. All right now from this angle, this is a great angle. This is probably one of the best angles so far down here. What we're seeing is the entry way room, this nicely staged dining room and then we have a good glimpse into the kitchen. All right, so I think we're pretty much done.

We didn't get an angle from here so I'm going to just take a look at it. Actually, we did get an angle. Not just in the dining room, I think we're a little bit further back. So I'm going to get an angle of this dining room as well, where you can see into the kitchen.

Might be a little overkill for that room but like I said, it's always better to have way more options during the editing process than not enough. All right, then in here I would get a little closer into this corner but my monitor's right there. So I'm going to do my best. I'm just going to zoom in a little bit. I'll get another shot. Just pick another angle of the tripod to get a little closer to this door jam. Just going to be a little better of a shot. So then I'll just pick one of the two in the editing process. All right, now since we're over here, let's go ahead and shoot the garage.

Now in this garage there's some cabinets. They're not too impressive. I'm not necessarily going to just shoot a straight on shot of them. I don't want to highlight them too much. I think shooting one shot this way and then another shot from the other way, you're going to get them in the shots. Now if they're really nice, I'd probably get a shot that's just focused on them. All right, so from here we have two options. We could go to the kitchen or we could go here first. I'm going to take a shot where we're just continuing into this room, areas perspective. And then I'll probably go this room first and then the kitchen.

So now in this room I'm going to just sometimes you'll want to snuggle up closer to the couch. This one I'm going to take it just so that we have a nice view outside of these windows. I like the back views. But right here is another good angle right here of the couch. So I'll capture both of them actually. And now from this angle, it's pretty much about the furniture. So I'm going to come in here. That looks good. And I can tell if they did a little bit remodeling around the fireplace, I'm going to take a picture of that. I'm sure they feel that's a really good selling feature even though they're not here.

So I'm going to take that photo. Now we're going to turn around to the dining. I guess this is just the kitchen and eating area. So I'm looking around for angles.

We'll get this corner shot. You might have a nice straight on shot into the kitchen as well. And I'm considering backing up so we can see this main area just kind of see how the kitchen flows from this perspective as well. It's a little dark back there but I think it should be alright. So show that. Now we'll move in more on this space here.

I'm looking at the countertops. They're looking pretty flat so I think I'm going to raise it up a little bit just to be able to see a little bit more of the countertops. I know that they did replace those here. I'm trying to see if there's a... This straight on shot actually doesn't look bad. I'll show what they did on the cabinets and countertops. Alright now, I'll probably get some straight on shots. One shooting that way, one shooting this way. But I'm also going to get a corner shot trying to show it all at in one shot. That looks pretty good to me. Straight on shot.

Into the new appliances. I'm going to do a two second so I can get out of the way. Make sure I'm not in the reflection. Shoot this way. And also I'm going to scoot in here a little bit just so that they can kind of get an idea of the views out the window as they're washing dishes.

I'm trying to think is there... I guess I was kind of far on the appliances. Somebody is really interested in it. I'll get this shot here. Alright, so I feel pretty confident. Now I'll look on this side of the kitchen. Do I want a shot here showing the dining room? Yeah, I think this is a good shot here. Kind of shows the space and how it flows. And then maybe a shot pointing this way. I really like the windows. They don't have any coverings on them but the windows are pretty clean. So you can see outside pretty well. Alright, I think that's probably good enough for the downstairs.

So from here we'll make our way upstairs. Now as we flow upstairs I always like to kind of get a... In case the agent just takes the photos and they just load them up. I want to give the potential buyer just the sense of alright now we're going upstairs. So this is an angle that I didn't get before where we have this sitting area. We see the front door and the stairs. So I'm going to shoot this.

And we'll move. A lot of times I will shoot the stairs just so people can see. Alright, do they stop? Turn is there a flap part upstairs? Now the master is to the left in this room and that's one of the... Or upstairs.

So I'm going to start with the master but as you can see there's like a little hallway pass through here. It's kind of a nice little separation between the regular rooms. So I'm going to get a... We'll start with the master bedroom and move that way. But I want to get a shot that shows kind of that overpass the walkway. In relation to the stairs. Alright so from here we'll move into the master. And I'll just start here at the doorway. Looking in. I usually try to avoid that door jam. I don't show too much. That's pretty good. Alright let's move in. I'm going to focus more on the sleeping area here.

To this corner. So we have that nice little nook area so we can do a straight on shot. I'm going to get a straight on shot and also a corner shot I think. So I'm going to scoot back. Alright now let's move to this separate area.

The master. I'm not the biggest fan of that angle. This angle looks better to me. For a little bit. Now my only option here I'm not going to try to squeeze in behind that furniture. I could get a shot from this angle shooting this way. But honestly I don't think that adds much value. I'm not seeing anything new. It's a lot focused on that wall. So I'm going to skip this shot. And I'm just going to go straight into. Let me see maybe we consider a shot from here. Which we got a shot of the bed area already. But I think I wasn't this far back. This shot actually might be better. It makes the space look a little bit bigger.

So I likely am not going to include both shots. The one I shot right here. In here. Let me go back real quick. And I'm just going to look at the other angle that I did shoot of that bed. See this shot you don't get the outside view of the door. With the most recent this shot that I just did you can see out there. I'm likely going to choose this one. So we'll deal with that in post production. And usually you don't want to include multiple shots. Of kind of the same area.

Because it's kind of repetitive. You want to give a potential buyer a view of different things. Instead of maybe multiple views of the same view of the home. Alright so in this in this bathroom. We might be able to.

Save ourselves from some post processing. Obviously there's a big mirror right here. But when they stage the home they put a nice flower pot. So this is a great area to where you can kind of hide your camera behind. Just get a straight on shot. Actually looks pretty straight. There's a lot of mirrors so I'm going to get out of the way. And in that shot if I look at it. I can't really see my camera. So that'll save some time. In the editing process. Now here.

We're going to get a picture of the tub. And the. And I can see myself. So I can either zoom in just a little bit. What I'm going to do. So you can either just take it zoomed out a little bit more. And shoot it. And then crop it in in post production. I usually will try to. Just kind of use what I can to reduce the. Post production time. Taking cameras out of mirrors and stuff. This does take quite a while. So when possible. Try to choose. You see how I can see my tripod a little bit. I'll try to choose angles. In which I can't you can't see. My tripod I can see the front of your camera just a little bit. There you go. A little bit more. Alright so we're good there. Now I'm going to choose an angle here. Shooting this way I can get my camera out of the reflection. And.

Try to avoid. Me zoom in. A little challenging with this display here. That looks good. I like the reflection as well. I can see myself in the mirror. You get a good view of the bed as well. Alright. Let me review these. I feel pretty good about the master bathroom photos. Now I'm going to take a picture in the master closet. On full wide at 16 millimeters. This is pretty much the extent of the master closet. Looks good. It's clear that there's built-ins. I don't think there's any need to take any more than just this single shot into the master closet. So I feel pretty confident there.

Let's move on. Actually, let me see. I guess I did get a straight on shot. I was looking at the shower. It doesn't look like the, it doesn't look freshly replaced. So I'm not going to get an individual shot. If it was a really nice shower I would get an individual shot of the shower as well. Now we've gone upstairs. We've gone to the left. So I'm just going to stick going around this way to make sure that I don't miss any rooms. Alright now these are pretty straight forward shots. They didn't stage these rooms. So I'm just going to do one corner and then the other corner.

Alright moving on to the next. Got the laundry room. That one right there is pretty dirty. So if possible I try to avoid it. You know I will all look to see how distracting it is in the pictures. I mean you can see it. It's not terrible. Am I getting any, let me look at what I got. So I got a straight on shot. I don't think I'm adding anything else by taking any additional angles in there. So I'm going to move on to this bathroom. Now I'm going to be trying to get as close to this door as possible. To destroy my monitor. I'm just going to zoom in.

I can see my camera a little bit. So I just can't move it much more. It's just peeking out a little bit. So I'll edit that in post-production. Alright that looks good. Now I also reviewed it to make sure it was in focus. If it wasn't I'd definitely take another shot. You want to make sure you at least get one. Now this is an interesting room. It's shaped more like a triangle. So to get a shot from the angle here you're just going to be seeing a lot of walls. So what I'm choosing here is a straight on shot into the room this way. It makes it look pretty big.

I can get it to shutter. Now the opposite way. So now this seems like it could be like a movie room or like an office shooting that way. Let me see what I got in the other one. I kind of got that nook already. Do I want to shoot back this way so they see? Or do I want to choose this corner here? What I'll probably do is choose this corner because you can see all the cabinets. That's a really nice selling feature. And obviously you can take another picture as well. I'm not the huge fan of this angle but I'm going to take it just while I'm here anyway.

Take the extra time here. Let's move on. I think I already checked these. It's a regular closet. I'll raise my tripod a little bit. I could have selected a straight on shot so I did corners. Maybe I will take a straight on shot as well. So that's pretty much it for upstairs. We got it all so let's head downstairs now the backyard. Alright so now we're stepping out back and looking at it. We can get a straight on shot coming out. I don't really like it too much because it's just cutting this off. I'll probably start this way looking just at the porch area. And then usually I'll jump to the opposite corner shooting the other way.

That looks good. I feel like we covered the porch pretty well. You could get a straight on shot here just to kind of show the doors. I feel like there's nothing too special and you're going to be able to see it from the other angle. So I'm not going to focus on that too much. You can also extend your shot out here. So beyond the porch you can see more of the backyard. So you got porch and then you can kind of see the backyard from this corner perspective. I'm going to take that. It looks like that corner over there might be obstructed by a palm tree.

So you don't have to get every single corner. You just want to pick the ones that will show the house in the best light. And I try not to cut off. There's like a chimney up there. Actually I'm not too worried about clipping off the top of the chimney as long as it's not the roof. And it's kind of obstructed by a tree anyway. So that looks good to me. Now we could get a straight on shot here in the center if we want. Let me look at it. Does it look good? Yeah, I think it looks good. I'm going to raise up my camera just a little bit.

Angle it up. Make sure not to cut off the chimney. Step over to this corner. Now a shot shooting out this way. Now I'm looking at this side yard. I mean is there a selling feature? It's got a little walk path so I might as well showcase that. That trash can is kind of far in the distance so I'm not worried too much about it. I'm going to take it. I think that'll probably do it for the professional photos right here. But obviously as a photographer you might see different angles throughout the house as you kind of roll through. I'm just trying to explain why I'm picking certain angles from my self's perspective so you can kind of take my thought process you can add on or see different angles.

But it's pretty simple when we're talking about angles, straight on shots. You can get different kind of creative angles but I guess you'll have to use your best judgment at every house that you're at because they're all different. And if there's a homeowner or agent make sure to pay attention to their instructions or at least kind of put yourself in their shoes and see where they put money into the house. And kind of focus on features that they really emphasize. And especially in this house that is staged you can see which rooms are of most importance to this agent. The rooms that are staged right? All the rooms downstairs and the master bedroom.

Those are the most important shots that you want to make sure that you nail in and get right. So obviously there's a lot of creative flexibility when you're shooting houses. Just keep those things in mind when you're shooting and your customers are going to love the shots that you deliver to them. So anyways reach out if you have any questions. We'll see you guys on the next one. On the way out we recognize that there's a lake right down the street. The customer did not order specifically community shots which we typically charge a little bit extra for. But just to go above and beyond to have a great customer experience I'm going to walk down and just take a couple photos.

So just spend the extra couple minutes if there's little ways that you can wow your customers. Obviously you're going to create more raving fans and happy customers that way. So don't be shy to go above and beyond for your customers. Here I'll get a wider shot here. You got to get higher for this.

I'm going to shoot it from the side of the street just to kind of show like it's across the street. Right. So sometimes you kind of want to show a little bit. And then from here this is a nice little setting. So you got a nice little bench right here. What I'm going to do is drop my tripod and just treat it like a like a room like you know it's more about capturing the lifestyle for a potential buyer. So if they live across the street that's their house. They can come over here anytime relaxing this chair and enjoy the ducks. We have a couple ducks out.

Now let me there we go. My focal length super. That's so show that I want to get a little bit of the chair. And that's that this is definitely the better angle right here which I got. You can see the ducks better now. There they go again. All right. You can get a good idea for the ducks. Maybe you zoom in just to show hey there's ducks here. Actually that's a very poor composed shot. I didn't get any of the horizon is pointed way too down. So you just zoom out. I just just wanted to get a nice shot and I'm going to go ahead and go in and delete these bad photos.

All right. So that's it. It took an extra three minutes. We came over here took a couple shots of this nice lake that's right down the street from the house. I think the agent will be pleasantly surprised when he sees additional photos of the community.