Ron Castle - Real Estate Photography for Everybody

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Copyright 2018 by Ron Castle.

All rights reserved.

All photographs by the author unless otherwise noted.

Published by:

Amherst Media, Inc.

PO BOX 538

Buffalo, NY 14213

www.AmherstMedia.com

Publisher: Craig Alesse

Senior Editor/Production Manager: Michelle Perkins

Editors: Barbara A. Lynch-Johnt, Beth Alesse

Acquisitions Editor: Harvey Goldstein

Associate Publisher: Katie Kiss

Editorial Assistance from: Carey Anne Miller, Rebecca Rudell, Jen Sexton-Riley

Business Manager: Adam Richards

ISBN-13: 978-1-68203-303-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939275

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without prior written consent from the publisher.

Notice of Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is based on the authors experience and opinions. The author and publisher will not be held liable for the use or misuse of the information in this book.

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Table of Contents

CONTENTS

. Ron Castle has been creating art since he graduated from the University of Arizona Graphic Design School in 1969 with a BFA in Commercial Art and Illustration. His interests have varied over the years, from graphic design, to oil painting, to photography. In the past thirteen years or so, photography has taken center stage in his creative life. After receiving an old Canon 10D DSLR camera from his son, Ron advanced his digital photography skills by completing several courses at the prestigious Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, utilizing numerous online resources, and through involvement with the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) organization starting in 2011. He earned PPAs coveted Certified Professional Photographer degree, and his very first entry into the International Photographic Competition in 2015 resulted in a Diamond Photographer of the Year award. As a result of the merits earned during the 2015 competition, along with 2016 competition merits, Ron earned PPAs Master Photographer degree in the shortest time possible! While Rons portrait, wedding, landscape, and wildlife images have earned numerous awards, in the last few years he has focused his passion on architectural and real estate photographyand added more awards in print competition to his credentials. Additionally, his images and techniques were featured in Texas Photographer magazine and he taught a popular real estate photography workshop for the Texas Professional Photographers state convention.

This book is an introduction to real estate photography and is primarily aimed at the reasonably experienced photographer who is getting into real estate photography for extra income or who aspires to make it a full-time business. However, as the title says, this is also a book that can help anyone (real estate agent, homeowner, interior designer, architect) who want to learn the basics of photographing a home and/or interior spaces. Im purposely limiting the scope of this book to what you need to start developing your skills. Each time you photograph a home, youll be applying lessons you learned from shooting the one before it. Its my hope that this book will speed up your learning curve considerably! Photographing interiors is not as easy as you might think, and it takes a lot of practice to produce consistently strong, impactful compositions for your clients.

The realities of the real estate business impose a special set of restrictions on a photographer, especially one who plans to make it a full-time career. Recording interior spaces, and being able to show how they relate is no easy task. Doing it in a way thats both artistically impactful and faithful to the realities of the property is even more difficult. Doing it efficiently enough to make it a career is more difficult still. I hope that this book will be a starting point that inspires you to continue growing your knowledge and honing your skills. One thing that should keep you motivated is that, if you do whats suggested, even your initial images will likely be better than those on most real estate websites!

This book is organized to provide you some basic knowledge about the business of real estate photography, the equipment youll need to do the job, what and what not to photograph, compositional considerations, and a suggested post-processing workflow. The later chapters will consist of several sample home shoots. These images and their captions will hopefully provide some helpful suggestions and perspective on what a typical real world real estate shoot entails.

I want to make one final important point. There are different methods of shooting architecture/real estate. Some photographers use artificial lighting techniques with speed-lights and/or strobes. Others, probably the majority right now, use high dynamic range (HDR) exposure-fusion techniques. Some use a combination of the two. Many different digital workflows are also used, depending on what capture methods are employed. This book is built exclusively around the HDR capture process and Adobe Lightroom as the primary post-processing platform. I believe this is the simplest and easiest way to get started with real estate photography, and the realistic HDR processing in Lightroom produces a very consistent, high-quality image. HDR fusion does have its limitations however, so if you plan on doing high-end residential or commercial architectural work, youll eventually have to learn how to employ at least some interior lighting techniques.

Some basic realities of the real estate photography business environment are important to discuss. They dictate not only the kind of equipment youll need and the technical skills youll need to develop, but also how you will approach the photography itself. If there is one reality that dominates all others, its the need for speed. A slow real estate photographer may be able to make a little side money, but he or she will never be able to make a living with it. Thats because another realitythe one that ultimately drives the need for speedis the fact that you arent going to be able to charge very much for each home you photograph. Your ability to make up for that with volume is going to determine your success. Any obstacle that interferes with your ability to photograph, post-process, and deliver your images for a residential property in a timely fashion is something youre going to have to overcome in order to be successful.

Even though your ability to be as efficient as possible with your workflow will ultimately determine your success in the real estate photography business, the most important thing youll need to do first is to go out and get the business! Your marketing efforts are crucial. This isnt a book on business marketing, so Ill just limit the discussion to specific things that you can do to build your realtor client base.