Occupants

Photographing houses can be a challenge sometimes.  Empty houses, while easy, are boring and it’s hard to tell scale — is that a 4′ wide window or a 6′ wide window?

Sometimes occupied ones are even harder.  Here are some

• The Tenant – I don’t care how much you love your renter or they love you, if you’re selling the house or condo, you’re making work for them.  And they have absolutely no skin in the game.  If they make it pretty and easy-to-sell, they have to move faster.  Total pain.  Some are better than others, sure, but some are nightmares.  My photos were once used in an eviction hearing against a pair of hoarders.  Enough said?
• The Divorcing – Divorce is hard, but sometimes it can be amicable.  When it’s not, neither party wants to do anything and the Realtor and the photographer can get caught in the middle.  Lots of fun.
• The Decorator – “I want to try this shot with and without the lamp.”  My response: “Are you selling the lamp or the house?  Get the lamp out of the shot.”  We’re not taking photos for Architectural Digest or Better Homes And Gardens — we’re there to take photos that someone at MLS is going to compress to death and put online for, we hope, a very short period of time.  Your “vision” doesn’t apply.
• The Photographer – Everyone who’s every gotten beyond the PHD settings on their camera thinks they’re a photographer.  And if they’ve ever been paid — even with compliments — they think they’re a professional.  They may even be a true professional wedding or portrait photographer — but just because I know my way around a camera and shooting a house I don’t think I could be a portrait or a wedding photographer.  The opposite doesn’t seem to be true.