Whether Realtors photograph their listings themselves or hire a professional photographer they need to understand what works for real estate marketing photos and why. These are the most important aesthetic considerations of real estate marketing photos:

1.  Understand the photo’s purpose: The purpose of a real estate photo is to sell real estate. You want potential buyers that see the photo on the web or other ads to say, “Wow, I like that, I want to see more.” Although staging rooms to look attractive is always a big help, be careful not to focus too much attention on furniture and décor because the buyer is not purchasing the furniture and décor. Focus more on the architecture and room spaces.

2.  Use a wide-angle lens to shoot rooms: My rule of thumb is that an interior photographer must use at least a 24mm equivalent lens to be effective. Many situations can benefit from an even wider-angle lens than 24mm. Be careful, when you mount a 24mm lens on a DSLR that have a crop factor of around 1.5 you end up with a 36mm equivalent lens, not a 24mm. Precious few off the shelf digital cameras come with lenses that are wide enough to effectively shoot interiors.

3.  Simplify images by removing everything from the image that distracts from your purpose of making the home look attractive. Particularly avoid things like chair backs and door frames in images. Every home can benefit from a home stager/designer/stylist going through the home arranging furniture, removing extra furniture and adding striking decorator items. Frequently it helps to move furniture around to get a better shot. However, you need to be careful if the homeowner is not present. Ideally the Realtor and or stager have worked with the homeowner to remove clutter and improve the look of the home before the photographer arrives but it doesn’t always happen. The photographer should keep an eye out for things that can be done to improve the photo. Some classic examples are refrigerator junk and towels hanging from the oven door.

4.  The front exterior shot is the most important image: Spend extra time on this image to make sure it is strong and communicates as many of the properties main features as possible. In web and print advertising Realtors repeatedly need to use one image to promote the property. This one image frequently is required by some MLS rules to be an exterior shot.

5.  Render interiors light and bright: Bright interiors are more attractive to buyers than dark moody ones so use this fact to attract buyers to the home. Real estate photography is not the place to use arty effects. You either need an external flash unit or long exposures shot on a tripod to make a room bright.

6.  Render all verticals vertical: Every vertical line (walls, cabinets etc) in real life MUST be shown parallel to the sides of the image so it appears vertical; if walls don’t appear vertical they unnecessarily distract the viewer’s attention. This is the most misunderstood of all the 10 essentials. One of the reasons is that when using a wide-angle lens it is very difficult to keep verticals so they don’t converge. One must keep the camera perfectly level in the front to back plane.

7.  Straight lines must appear straight: The barrel distortion in many lenses make straight lines near the edge of images appear to be curved. A viewer’s eye will pickup the slightest bit of curve in a wall they know is straight.

8.  Don’t let bright windows distract: Windows can be hundreds of times brighter than other parts of interiors. This causes windows to appear completely white or “burned-out” in an interior image. Burned-out windows can be very distracting in an interior image. Window burn-out can be controlled by either using an external flash unit to increase the interior light level, shooting at twilight when the light level outside is near the inside light level or using photo-editing techniques to render the windows a similar brightness as the outside. Sellers with view homes expect images that show both the interior and the view.

9.  Remove distracting color casts: Many factors contribute to the color of your final image. White-balance and the type of light source are two major factors that real estate photographers must understand and control. Don’t let an ugly color cast detract from the purpose of your image.

10.  Size and crop images based how they will be used: Vertical format (portrait mode) images don’t work well for most real estate advertising unless you know the shot is for a flyer or magazine ad that is vertical format. Most real estate websites are designed to work best with horizontal (landscape mode) images and a mixture of horizontal and vertical format images on a website or gallery can be very distracting.