PHOTOGRAPHYmasterclass
Photo phobic?
John Durrant, property photographer extraordinaire, just can’t stop going on about estate agents’ photography skills. Read and learn.
ChanCes are you’re phobiC Don’t feel bad about that – many of us have phobias of one kind or another. Mine is the completely rational fear of living my nightmare – the one involving town centre toilets with glass walls. I imagine that yours, judging from some of the photos you use to promote property, might be the fear of learning how to operate a camera. Why else would so many agents photograph the source of their living, (their clients’ properties), with a one-click gizmo that looks as though it’s fallen out of a Christmas cracker?
Why Does this happen? Many agents – maybe 80 per cent of you – produce photos that aren’t up to scratch insofar as they don’t show their properties at their best. Look through the portals if you don’t believe me. There you’ll find properties photographed with all the skill of a 59 year-old, like me, surfboarding at Newquay for the first time. Also, I’ve seen the kit that many of you use and if you want to know why it’s not good enough then just ask. How do you expect to attract the market’s best buyers, (the few with access to money who will pay the optimal price), with photos that are less than excellent? You have only to take a hard look at the
expertise with which 20 per cent or so of your competitors present their properties – those who use professional photographers or know their way around a suitable camera – to see why the best homes end up with them to sell and not you. Why aren’t you rising to that challenge? Perhaps you’re comfortable being a part
of the crowd – the 80 per cent whose property photos are possibly hindering sales rather than helping them. Maybe you’ve lost your ambition to be the best in your industry. It’s also possible, however, that you actually are phobic, or at least think yourself incapable of learning; and
22 FEBRUARY 2011 PROPERTYdrum
so subscribe to the theory that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Whatever the reason for your reluctance
to learn, perhaps now that we’re in a tough market it’d be a good time for you to review your thinking. Learning how to operate a camera really isn’t the big challenge that pipe-smoking professional photographers in anoraks and sandals would have you believe. And we’re not exactly talking here about you gaining the ability to produce spot-lit works of art
that’ll hang in a chic, white-walled central London gallery. All you really need as a professional property marketer is photos that are correctly exposed, sharp, have good colour and adequate thought given to angles and composition. Fortunately, the skills to achieve these objectives are easily learned. Since writing my four articles for PROPERTYdrum last year
Many agents maybe 80 per
cent of you – produce photos that aren’t up to scratch insofar as they don’t show their properties at their best.’
I’ve travelled around the UK spending a day at a time, teaching agents and other photographers how always to get the best possible shots of exteriors and interiors – and, thus, how to improve their own image as property professionals. How might your professional image be affected? Well, my theory is that if you can’t be bothered to get the photos right then there are probably other tasks you won’t be bothered to do properly either? I don’t think the logic unreasonable and I doubt that those with better homes to sell would disagree. Throughout my travels I’ve detected an
almost tangible polarisation of professional standards between agents. For example, in December I was in the New Forest where I worked with a team of really enthusiastic, highly motivated estate agents who already took pretty good photos, but had the desire to excel in the way they presented their properties. In stark contrast, their competitors in offices across the road from
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