Real Estate Photography

I'll start with a confession: I'm scared of real estate. that might be because my girlfriend and I are too poor to afford anything beyond the cramped one-bedroom apartment we share in Washington DC. It could be because when I do look at beautiful pictures of real estate on realtors pages, I just become more aware of how many more windows my apartment could have or the roof deck I'm missing out on. Despite this I decided to become a real estate photographer, subjecting myself to beautiful apartments and houses and trying not to imagine myself living in them.

After moving to Washington DC is when I really decided to give real estate photography a go. There's so many amazing multicolored town homes that give the city so much character. So many beautifully restored old buildings forming cozy, tightly knit neighborhoods, all of which I wanted to visit. Real estate photography has been a door into so many new and interesting places.

The actual photographing of real estate has been a challenge. I learned most of what I know watching real estate photo tutorials on youtube, supplanting that with practicing on my own home. For real estate photography, lots of light is important, whether it comes from outdoors or is created artificially. Thankfully Washington DC is a bright city, even during the winter the sun doesn't set too early, meaning there's a lot of hours in the day to take photos. Another problem in many DC homes have concrete ceilings (which make light reflection difficult), or colored walls, which makes photographing them a challenge. I solve this by bringing a large white bounce, which produces nice white light.

My favorite of the many DC homes that I've photographed is a townhome in the Adams Morgan area. There were so many rooms, all a different, vibrant color. The owners had lived in DC in that home for 21 years, and I think it was hard for them to leave. When they saw my photos not only were they thrilled but they said it was hard to leave such a beautiful piece of DC real estate.

I can't wait to photograph more nice homes in the DC area, I know there's a lot of great neighborhoods tucked away.