Summer light

I may be repeating myself but I cannot stress enough how important good lighting is for a picture. I try to only use natural light as it imparts a natural glow to the picture, but sometimes this lighting need to be tweaked a bit.

With a recent photo shoot (thanks Janice Selig of Allen & Selig Realty), I was challenged a bit with the harsh light outside that created defined streaks indoors. As you can see in both exterior photos (at the beginning and end of this blog), this was strong, midday light. It was at about 2pm in July, not a time I would usually pick to shoot a house, because midday light can be overbearing. I usually like either morning or afternoon light, as its lower on the horizon and imparts a soft glow. However, this wasn't an option for this shooting as the house was on a wooded lot, which would have created shadows on the exterior parts of the house if later in the day (morning wouldn't work either as the sun would be on the back part of the house, rather than the front).

I sorted out the outside but the back to the inside challenge, which was the strong light seeping in and creating unwanted beams of light. Now our eyes edit this streaking out (in fact I think it adds drama to a room) but the camera doesn't add any emotion, and instead takes away from the photo and what I'm trying to convey.


One of the rooms that I had this challenge was in the downstairs bedroom. As you can see in the photo, the afternoon sun cast its light on the bed, leading the eye to the middle of the room, not towards the back, which is what I wanted the buyer's eye to go (to give a sense of depth to the room, I wanted the buyer's eye to be pulled to the small lamp by the side of the bed.)



So I tried completely shutting the blinds, and bumping up the exposure on my camera, but with the dark wood, walls and bedspread, the room looked too cave like. The eye was pulled back to the lamp as I wanted, but would the buyer even like the room?


My final solution was to partially raise the blinds so some natural light came in but without the streakiness on the bed. I then shifted the angle of the picture I was taking just a bit, so that you couldn't see the window where the light was coming in (also a bit distracting). The final result was a room that made use of natural light the best way it could without any strong rays to take away from the picture.

(Another exterior view, that shows the strong light of midday)

Removing the little details

On a recent virtual tour shooting (thanks, Elisabeth Bostwick of Bostwick and Co!), I realized sometimes removing the simplest items can make a huge difference in a photo. These could be items that stagers really like (splash of color, inviting bouquet) but in the camera's eye they are distracting and take away from the picture.



(Above)
While the little red rug was eye catching and worked with the other colors in the room (the seller has a great eye), I was trying to emphasize the width and depth of this space, so felt this splash of red was distracting to the eye. The color pulled the eye down to the floor and not to the back of the picture, which is what I wanted to emphasize.


(Above)
In this picture, the lack of distracting red really pulled the eye back and opened up the room to show how large it was. I also centered and pulled back the more neutral rug so that the tile was shown off. Also by moving the rug, I exposed more depth to the room.

Another item is the table centerpiece. While many stagers would want an eye catching piece on this table (and I think most home sellers would put one on anyway), I removed the bouquet because there was already a fair amount going on in this room, and I wanted a place for the eye to rest.


Finally, I've included the virtual tour and a lovely quote from the seller, for this property, "Thank you Hannah for the AMAZING virtual tour! (You) did a wonderful job with the inside..."

Before and After

To change up the blog a little bit, I thought I'd post before and after pictures for a house I shot recently. The before pictures were taken by the agent, Diane Wescott of Allen & Selig Realty, who's given me permission to use them here. (She freely admits that she's not a professional photographer which is why she hires me for every house she has).

The ones I took are the after shots. I thought it would be interesting because this house is a modest ranch house and it still is very important to have great photos for houses, no matter what the price point. In fact it may be more important for the average house because there is greater competition, less chance of another professional photographer taking pictures, and this listing will stand out in the crowd. Anyway, here are some photos and my thoughts of what I did to make the house look the best that it could. Cheers, Hannah




The picture on the left is the before, and the two pictures in the center and right are the afters. The before picture shows cold light, underexposure and a very cluttered kitchen. The seller decluttered it quite a bit before I came over, and then I had her take pretty much everything off the counters. The camera sees every detail, more so than we see with our naked eye. Not to go too much off on a tangent but even after a house is staged, I usually need to make some adjustments in order to take good pictures. Staging is part one of the process to show a house well, to shoot the best pictures I need to go to part two - usually much more spare than regular staging, and then after the shoot the house can go back to part one again. I think this merits a whole other blog post, but wanted to delve into that quickly.

For the after pictures, I used the natural light from the window and side door, but also made sure to have every light on in the kitchen to make it more appealing. I also have portable lights if there are huge shadows or something is backlit, but for this house I didn't use them as they can get in the way in small spaces. I also overexpose a bit, just to make the rooms be a bright as possible and to have all the details pop. Finally, I use staging material such as plants for the potential buyer's eye to rest on something, and to have a positive feeling about the item and also the room. I have some of my own materials but also enjoy using what the seller has in their house.


The living room was cluttered, the light was tricky because of the windows behind the furniture, and the furniture was pretty heavy for the size of the room. I had the sellers clear off all extraneous items and then looked for the most open shot in the room. I rarely shoot TVs, so just worked that out of my picture (you can see it in the corner of the before shot). I bumped up the exposure again, turned on all the lights, and not to get too detailed but worked on the light metering to make sure it was taking a reading off the sofa, not the windows (which would have made the picture too backlit and dark, which is what happened in the before picture).



This was a very attractive room, with lots of space and light. I wanted to highlight this room as being something fairly unusual to find in a ranch. In the before picture it is dark again (a challenge in a sun room as the outside can be so bright) and a bit cluttery. The seller decluttered, rearranged the furniture and I worked on the lighting. By opening up the blinds it would let in too much light so I had them partially closed, just enough to show that it was sunny without interfering with the light. Also, because it is mud season in Maine and the outdoors isn't too attractive, I tried to minimize what was outside and in fact with one picture overexposed the picture so that you couldn't see outside in any case.


Here is the exterior of the listing. This listing is important to shoot carefully as it has many competitors. In fact many agents might not feel that it was worth having professional photography taken because of its price point, but you can see the difference between what an agent would generally shoot and what a professional photographer would. As buyers now eliminate online, this listing should stand out over its competition.

Small Condo in Portland

I shot a small condo in Portland this week, on Winter St, and I had a great time. The seller had a great sense of modern style which really worked well for the condo, and even though under 500 sq ft, the flow and height of the ceilings made it feel much bigger.



As in all shoots, there were a number challenges in shooting this condo (that's what makes it fun!). As mentioned above, working with the size and demonstrating the nice flow of the place, without misleading potential buyers in terms of its size was one hurdle to overcome.
The next one was the exterior shot. In the West End of Portland, houses are close together and also have many telephone lines in front of them. We edit out these lines with our eyes, but the camera makes them visible and ugly. I chose to get around this by doing up close shots and ones that minimized the lines, instead using a tree to frame the building.

The most interesting challenge was the strong light that came into the condo. You wouldn’t think that would be a problem, except the strong light, created strong shadows that even my lighting wasn’t able to balance well. So the seller and I tacked a pillow case over the window to let light in but make it more diffuse. You will see in the picture that this pillow case even looked like a nice curtain, so I didn’t even really have to hide it when I was shooting.




It was a really fun shoot, where I spent a lot of time on detail, and I think the pictures are some of my better ones. The listing is with John Herrigel of Green Tree Realty, and is for $124,900.
For more pictures of this listing and others, feel free to go to the album of new photography of listings on my fan page "envisonpix" . I will post the virtual tour soon as well.

Virtual tour for John Herrigel

Whoops, got behind in this blogging thing since the holidays (I guess it happens sometimes). I took some pics for John Herrigel at GreenTree Realty for a house he listing in Portland (41 Nottingham Rd). Its a small bungalow but has really nice details and I tried to highlight them, with rugs (to show off the hardwood floors) and plants in the dining room.
The tough room to shoot was the kitchen (there is always at least one challenge in shotting a house), as you can see, there were some really large beams in the way, which added to the character, but was also hard to show the openness of the kitchen. So I shot it two ways, both with the beams in the way, trying to keep it as symmetrical as possible, and then with the beams behind me, so show the openness of the kitchen. The beams as well as the woodstove definitely gave character to the kitchen so I tried to include them, without it being cluttered.


It was great that they moved most of the furniture out of the house. One of the hardest things to work with is a small house stuffed with furniture, that you have to shoot around and also try not to insult the homeowner, who has lived in the house with this cluttered furniture. When that happens and I need to move things, I explain to the homeowner (and the listing agent too) that the camera sees everything, so it needs to be less cluttered than even when the house is shown.
Here is the visual tour link,
Going to do another set of stills for John this weekend in Brunswick. Stay tuned!