Photo Shoot 2 — Large Vacant Home

Transcript

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

Today we're going to be shooting this two-story 3500 square foot home in Gilbert, Arizona. So let's get started.

All right, first things first, we're going to go through and make sure that everything looks photo ready. Let me grab the key out of the lock box. Got the code.

And now let's take a look at the sign. I'm pretty familiar with this sign installation company. And these ones are extremely hard to take off. So I'm just going to leave this sign. I'm going to make the determination just to blur it out where we need it to be blurred out. And or pick angles that don't showcase the sign. All right, grab the key. All right, smells fresh like cleaners were just here. So let's go around and turn on the lights. Well actually a lot of lights are still on already. Somebody must have already been here. What is this? Pantry? Actually a pretty good size pantry.

Let me see here. I'm not so sure about this chandelier light switch. Nope. I think I'm running out of switches here. Maybe over here. That's the fan. Huh, is it a pull string? There's two switches right here by the wind. It should be kind of odd. That would be the garbage disposal and then that one's over there. Let me try this switch over here. I think that's like going up the stairs. Maybe that just doesn't work. All right, so let's move on. All right, all these lights are on down here. This is a pretty good size home. A good size home. All right, now this bathroom. We're going to have to put the toilet seat down. And we have a, it looks like a broken shower curtain. Which I don't know if the cleaners just forgot to put it back up. Let me see. I might just put it back up because I think somebody just took it down to clean and didn't put it back up. So instead of moving it,

maybe I'll just move it out of the way like that. That looks all right. All right, let's take a look. This is just a closet. All right, this room looks good to go. All right, let's head upstairs.

This is a big home. I don't want this video to be super long. So I'm going to hustle through here. Nor do I want to spend all day here. All right, got the light. All right, lights are on in here in the master. The only thing noticeable is that there's no glass on the shower, which I guess they just haven't had a chance to install yet. All right, lights on in here in the closet and the room.

Like the layout of this house. It's pretty cool. Looks good. All right, so everything looks good on the inside of the house. Now we're going to hustle downstairs. Go outside. We'll go in the backyard. The front looks pretty good.

I'm just going to make sure that everything is in order. I'm just looking for things that are out of place. We've got a fire pit, a pool, pool is clean.

There's a little water feature to the pool, but I'm not going to try to turn that on. We have like some chemicals over here, it looks like. And like a tool or a pole. I'm not going to mess with any of these. Actually, I will mess with one of them. This is just a pole cleaner. I'm going to lay it on the side of the house so it's not so distracting. But that looks good.

Or at least as good as it's going to get. It's not super clean. I think it could have used a nice just combing the rocks with a rake.

But I think that's pretty much it for the setup of this house. So now we're going to go back out front and grab the camera and get started. All right. So we have our camera now. We're going to start with the center shot out front.

I extended my tripod all the way out since this is a two-story home. I'm going to get as tall of a perspective as I can. And it's a nice corner lot.

So I guess I'll get more perspective on that side here. But from here, I'm just going to zoom in. Do we want to zoom in past the sign? I think so. Just get that out of the shot. And now the walkway is on the left side. So I'm going to go on the right.

Make sure to get that RV gate in the shot here so we could zoom out. This is going to be a pretty quick spot out of the sign.

We're just blurring of the information. I do want to get a wider shot to show how many cars you could potentially put in this driveway, which is a good selling point. And let's see.

So there's a lot going on right here. There's a stop sign. There's a light post. And then there's the real estate sign. So I'm going to choose the angle inside. I'm going to lower my tripod here because being too high with this tree obstruction, you're not going to see much of the house. So let's see what we can do here.

So just kind of getting a shot of the house, more of the front yard. Probably go as wide as we can just to make it look big. And honestly, should it go higher? No. I would like it higher, but that a tree obstruction just makes it hard to see what you're looking at. All right. So we got all the main shots of the front of the house. Now let me zoom out. I don't want to crop off the top of the house. I'm a little bit low. Let me come, forgot how tall this two-story is. And now there we go. That looks better. All right. Now I'm going to drop them. And I think that wider shot is going to cover the front door shot as well. So I must have locked the door on the way out or from the inside. Actually, we went out back. All right. Let's go inside. And what I first like to do is that center shot on the opposite side of the entry. So we'll just take a shot of what it looks like when you first come in.

Now we could go into this room or we could go that way. I think I'm going to go this way. I think these are more the main areas of the home. So let me, let me get a shot that just shows the front door. And then we'll work our way that way.

Let me come back a little bit. That door is looking a little distorted on its positioning. I think that looks good. It shows a lot of areas in the home. All right. So now let's focus here and do a straight on shot. I feel like I could be actually higher up. These ceilings are pretty tall.

Maybe I'll, I'm not going to use, I'm not going to keep it this tall, but I like to extend it all the way and then loosen these top ones. And then just kind of work it down to the height that I want to shoot at. I'll probably just, just maybe give a little extra six inches. And then I'll be able to adjust this to a more appropriate height. I thought I have some flexibility. All right. That looks good.

We have a lot of sun coming in from outside. So I wanted to avoid standing in it where you're going to see our shadow. So now I'm going to shoot this way going. The opposite direction here. That looks pretty good. Now let's move into the kitchen area. This home is pretty big. I'm not, I'm not going to try to overshoot it too much. But as always, we will definitely take more photos in the kitchen than most of the other rooms. Now this is kind of a different kitchen. So I'm going to get a shot here. It's almost like it has two islands. Let me get a straight on shot here. And then I'm going to work my way into the kitchen. See do I want to lower? That looks okay. Closer up shots, lower the tripod a little bit. I'm going to come in here. I get close to this cabinet and then get a shot into the kitchen with the island. On that side, let's see. I mean, we have a lot of angle options in this kitchen.

I just want to try to capture the ones that are going to add the most value. I don't want to deliver 20 angles in this kitchen. That looks okay. Let me move it over a little bit. That's uh, that ice maker is making some noise. All right. So we got an angled shot. Let me try to get a straight on shot here. I'm just the countertops and the appliances here.

And then I think I'll get another one of just this area here. I'm going to zoom in just a little bit just to crop off a little more of that corner. So it doesn't look distorted or as distorted. Just review the kitchen real quick. You know, I think I feel like we got the kitchen covered. So let's move.

So we can either shoot the laundry room in garage right now or risk potentially forgetting about them. I'm going to go ahead and just shoot it now. So I'm going to go wide right here. Let's move into the garage. Got a nice three car garage here. Now in this garage, we have a lot of stuff in this corner. So I'm going to choose an angle that doesn't showcase the lawnmower and the old blinds for this house, but it shows the cabinets over here as well.

So let's go ahead. All right. Now we could do a straight shot right here. I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to do this corner shot. I think I should do it for the garage. All right.

All right. So we got this area. So we're going to keep working our way around on the inside. I will move those the laundry room and garage shots in the editing process to the end of the interior shots. Let's see. Let me scoot in here. That looks all right. And then I'm going to get the opposite corner here. Just we'll showcase this other room that I'm going to shoot next and how it flows in relation to the kitchen. It's kind of interesting with this wall right there. Don't see that all the time. All right.

Shoot here towards the opposite corner and we could shoot this if we wanted to. This angle doesn't add a whole lot of value. We kind of already got the gist of the room from that other corner. Since it's such a big area, I'm going to go ahead and

grab the angle since we're over here. This one adds definitely adds more value than the previous shot. We can see how where this room sits in relation to the front door, kitchen and that other shot or the other area as well. All right. So we got all these main areas. That's just some storage. I'm not going to shoot that. We haven't shot this yet. So we'll shoot this other entry room. And then we'll work our way down the hallway. I'm going to grab this corner shot. I think this is going to show. Well, I actually like this shot. You can kind of see upstairs the little balcony. And all the way over into the kitchen as well as the hallway that goes down here for like, I don't know, an office or it could be a separate bedroom. I'm not going to shoot this hallway.

All right. So this bathroom shot, let me get as close over as I can. I feel like I'm really high again. I guess I don't need that extra height, at least for right now. So let's come in here. Let me zoom in a little bit just to get that door jam out out of the way. And that shower curtain looked a little odd. I'm going to put it a little straighter here. Kind of hidden. I just didn't want it on the floor where it was before. All right. That looks good. Now we'll move on to this room here. I'm going to start in the corner and raise up just a hair, widen it out. All right. Do we want this corner?

I think the other corner is going to be better. Or a straight on shot would have been nice as well. You could see kind of down the hallway. I'm actually, I'll grab both. So we got the corner shot. Whoops. Sorry, Ray. And then we'll get inside this room, kind of looking out where this room sits in relation to that other main area. All right. So we pretty much got all of downstairs covered. Now we're going to make our way upstairs. Several bedrooms up there. Before we go up there, I like to take a shot of the stairs so we can kind of, so the potential buyer can visually fill. All right. Now we're transitioning to going back up, going upstairs.

And this is an interesting house because it's got like two stairways. Now I'm going to just go up this way. I'll probably get a shot as well from up there, looking down at the stairs. So they can see how these stairs flow where you can access the kitchen quickly, or you can go out the front door. All right. So this is the master. Let me see if I get a shot.

I think I get this shot after I shoot this room. So as I, after I shoot this room over here, as I come out, going down that way, then we'll get that shot. All right. So we have the master. We have these double doors. That's not a very good angle. I mean, we could showcase that it does have double doors right here. So, though I don't like this shot that much because how the fan is kind of off to the left,

but we'll just step right inside the door, shoot towards the opposite corner. And since it is the master, I'm going to grab three angles in here. I'm going to grab this corner and then that corner, that fourth corner we don't need because it's only going to show basically two walls. It's not really going to add any value to a potential buyer. And pretty much we've already seen it all. All right. Here we go. All right. From here, we'll just do an entry shot into the bathroom. I think I'm going to move more towards this wall than that wall. We got the fixtures. You see the shower? We see the closet. Just going to drop it a little bit. I think that's good. Only thing nice about not having any glass is we don't have to worry about the reflections. All right. Here we could get a straight on shot. I think they did redo these countertops.

Like here, you probably, to make it easier on yourself on the editing, position your camera in a spot where there's not a whole lot of lines. That's just something to think about. It's not the end of the world. If you can't, I kind of can't because I have this monitor right here, but I'm going to have to hustle to get out of the shots. And actually I'm going to double check this to make sure I didn't show up. Good there.

All right. Now I'm going to get a straight on shot of the shower and the bathtub. Now we'll move for the master closet. I'm going to kind of try to center it up a little bit, come back as far as I can without showing the door. Over this way. That looks pretty good. I pretty much captured the essence with that one photo, so I'm not going to need a second in that closet. All right. So now we transition out of the master towards the other bedrooms. And I want to show how the stairs kind of flow towards the kitchen. So that looks all right. I might get a second shot just to show how the balcony or how the railing looks here. All right. Now we just work our way down this hallway. So here I'm going to try to be as close to this door jam as possible. Let's see if I can line this up and then just get the opposite corner. I'm going to reposition my camera here. All right. We got the closet and that other door. That looks good to me. Let me double check my ISO setting. Oh, they're good. Probably something you want to check before you start shooting. All right. We'll do the opposite corner here in the secondary bedroom.

We've got the closet door open showing that it's a walk-in closet. Nice and spacious. Now we have the bathroom. We kind of have walls here coming in. So I'm going to come in and I'm going to lower the camera. And it looks kind of dark. So I'm going to up my exposure well a little bit just so it looks normal. I think it is more exposing for the windows. That looks pretty good. Definitely in the reflection. So I'm going to move out. Just double check the shot. Looks good.

Now do you want a shot of the shower? There's really nothing impressive about this shower. We've got a good shot on it on the other angle and then the countertops. I've been being that this is the only bathroom shot that we got in this one. I think we captured pretty much the essence of the bathroom and it's in focus. So I'm going to move on.

All right. So this one's at an angle already. So we're going to just shoot straight in towards the opposite corner. I'm going to put my exposure well back to zero. Raise it up a little bit. All right. Move to the opposite corner to move on. And now we just have this little nook den area. We'll just get a shot right here going in. Kind of treat it like another room.

I'm going to get this angle right here so we can see how it flows towards the entryway. And then you can see the master double doors.

White balance looks a little bit off because we have daylight coming in here and then we have more tungsten look. Now does this angle add any value? I'm not sure but I'm going to go ahead and just take it. So I'm here. Drop that leg. Just go through mental checklists making sure that I hit every single room. Got the master. We got all the rooms downstairs. I don't think there's any additional angles that I want to shoot

as I'm wandering around that I didn't already capture. I guess going outside, these are nice doors. So I'm going to take a shot of these doors and then we're just going to transition outside. Just put my camera here. Shut the door. So this one, we can start with the straight on shot. What does it look like when we first come outside? And then I'll work my way this way towards the pool. Just stand on this side of the porch. Just get that pillar out of the shot so we can kind of just see all that this backyard has to offer from this point of view. Then we could do the opposite angle which I'll get as well. We got the fire pit, the barbecue over there. All right. So we'll get shots of the pool and then we'll get individual shots of

the fire pit and the barbecue as well. You get it wide. I try not to cut off too much of the sides of the pools. Usually a little bit of a lower shot on the pools. I'm not a huge fan of this shot just because that stop sign is so front and center. It just looks a little weird. I'm going to pick this corner. Instead, but we have the sun right behind us. So now we're dealing with shadows going that way. Now, yeah, this looks excellent. Actually, I like the lighting here. Now just trying to make sure we're not casting any shadows in the shot. That looks great.

I would like to get back there, but it's kind of risky. We'd have to walk on the edge of the pool. And I don't want to, you know, risk dumping my camera into the pool. So I'm not going to capture that. We can also get a more straight on shot towards the corner here. And then from here, I'm going to turn around, shoot the fire pit, zoom in a little bit so you can see it a little better.

Now I'm going to step to the side, kind of get the porch where we can see the barbecue pit. Got this nice paved area. Somebody should have removed that dead palm tree, but that's all right. Now I'm going to shoot a straight on shot onto the towards the barbecue area.

It's not that impressive, but it's kind of a nice feature. If you're going to have a party back here, grill some steaks hanging out by the fire pit. And then I'm going to scoot in a little bit just to try to get the sun out of the shot. You could try to get, use your hand, but

I think it's better. So we'll crop off those trash cans, get the RV gate so people can see what's on the opposite side. Ideally I'd like to be a little further back, but I think this looks pretty good. All things considered. Now I will get a shot back here straight on just so they can see the slab and say, oh I could park a car back here if I really needed to.

And there's also a little storage shed that's kind of built into it. I'm not going to open it because it, actually maybe I will. I'll send it over. It didn't look that impressive when I looked at it earlier, but to that one buyer, they might like how you have that storage right there built into the side of your house. All right. Now I'm mentally thinking of all the shots we got. We got the front, all the inside.

Got all the backyard shots. Got the garage, the laundry room, and I think that's probably going to do it for the professional photos of this particular property. Went through that, this one pretty quick, but just want to show that you can't actually move pretty quick regardless of how big the home is.

It's pretty easy to move around, especially when they're begging. Obviously it's going to be, it'd probably be a few more shots if there were furniture, you'd want to kind of choose compositions a little bit differently, but since it's so, it's vacant, it's pretty simple. So anyways, reach out if you guys have any additional questions on this. Before we leave, we're obviously going to put the home back in the condition in which we found it, and we'll see you guys on the next one.