THE IMPORTANCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN YOUR REAL ESTATE LISTINGS, PART II by Hunter Robertson

1) Arrange, tidy and set up as needed. Smooth the bedclothes. Arrange the magazines on the coffee table. Stow the loose toys scattered on the floor in a box. Hide the dog’s food bowl. Make the place look good!

Look for the best viewpoint from which to photograph the room. Usually a corner will work best.

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2) Adjust your camera height. Most amateur real estate pictures are taken from standing height, which is too high a point of view. This tends to show too much ceiling and to shrink the floor, making the space look smaller than it is. To handle that, people usually then tilt their camera down, which distorts the lines in the photograph. Doorways and walls for example will not show as rectangles but start to taper towards the top.

Take your photos from around seated or chest height with the camera level front-to-back and you’ll show the room much more naturally, and more importantly, appealingly.

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3) Keep your camera level from side-to-side. Tilting your camera towards one side or the other will make your pictures look like they were taken by a drunk on a Saturday night. Things that should be horizontal or vertical will lean like the Tower of Pisa. Whether people consciously realize it or not, this will look wrong to them and be off-putting.

So how do you get your photos square and level? The simplest way is to line up the edges of the camera’s LCD screen with some vertical edge in the room - a doorway or wall for example. Some cameras have a built-in electronic level and if you really want to get fancy, you can buy a spirit level that attaches to the camera.

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There are many situations which will call for professional equipment and know-how, but by using these tips and techniques you can make dramatic improvements in your listings’ photographs and thus their salability.

Next week, I’ll tell you how to brighten up your images and stop your properties from looking like dingy cellars!

Hunter Robertson is a photographer specializing in real estate, interiors and architectural photography, based in Geneva, Switzerland - www.hrphotographie.com

©2014 Hunter Robertson