One aspect of the work I do that is hugely satisfying is the constant learning experience. Over the last few weeks I have been working on a set of popular techniques utilised by our well-paid brethren in Australia, the US and Canada - where paying good money for the best real estate photography is considered entirely normal practice. The UK is a strange market where you have some agents and clients willing to pay decent rates, some using agencies that pay poverty rates and some using their own skillset and equipment… with varying results (and rarely all that good).
The latter are a special breed at present as they have all been buying into drones and I have seen some woeful footage recently in terms of flying skill and editing skills, but also flagrant breaches of aviation law which I strongly suspect is going to see a huge enforcement clampdown soon and some stinging repercussions.
Anyway, back to the point (and away from critiquing the output of others)… I have been trying some of the techniques out for myself to see how they translate to my work and my locations. The results have been pretty interesting, and they certainly work well on more modern properties… but something more traditional or less “clean”… I am just not sure as yet. I need to work on the technique as they operate it a little more, but I have also started working on a variation of their ideas and created my own workflow that is a hybrid of their system and what I had been doing previously. Early results are really quite favourable too!
This house belongs to an elderly couple and has that lived in look about it, using a super clean technique lost the homely warmth, whilst using my standard technique left the windows blown out for one. I wanted to retain the view out the door but also that natural light! This technique seems to work well for both, but it is time consuming… with a little more refinement and streamlining though I think it could be a winner!