Our website is your shop window, so taking great quality photographs is the best way to get noticed by location managers, producers and photographers. They use our site daily to find their perfect location. Read on to learn everything you need to know about photographing your location.
Can I take the photos myself?
Our location owners take most of the photos we display on our site themselves. Taking pictures isn't difficult, especially once you've read our tips on how to photograph your property successfully. If you're still not sure your photography skills are up to it, then, by all means, use a professional photographer. It means that you can be confident of high-quality images. Remember, the better the photographs, the more likely your location will get noticed. Even then, it is no guarantee that a production company or photographer will choose your location, but its an excellent starting point!
10 top tips before you get started.
As in most things, preparation can make the difference between doing something really well or doing it badly (or only just well enough). Take a look at our 10 top tips before you get started.
1. Choose a sunny day when the light is good - your house will look much better in natural lighting. And avoid flash.
2. Tidy up. Prospective clients will want to get a feel of your house as a blank canvas; make the beds and put things away so that the room can shine without the distraction of clutter and mess. If you have items that you don't want to be available for filming, then put them away before you take photos.
3. Limit photos to the rooms you are prepared to make available. Our clients will expect to be able to film or photograph every room that is on our website.
4. Use a digital camera, and yes, your smartphone will be good enough. If you have a tripod, then use it to make sure that your images are steady and straight. If not, then make sure that you hold your phone or camera as steadily as possible.
5. Don't use a wide-angle lens. Wide angled lenses can be useful to see a wider perspective of a room, but often they are used to make a small room look bigger. It is best to play safe and steer clear, and just take a series of photos from different angles if you don't want to miss important features of your room.
6. Take LANDSCAPE photos. Most location websites use a standard format for displaying images which are usually square or landscape. If you include portrait photos, then inevitably the photo will appear cropped in the majority of images.
7. No artistic angles. The images should show a location manager or photographer what your rooms look like so that they know what they've got to play with. If your artistic shot means that they can't tell where the floor ends and the ceiling starts, they may simply "pass" on your location.
8. Focus on the rooms, not their contents. Remember, clients are interested in the space and its architectural features. You may love your collection of china dogs or your favourite lamp, but the client is unlikely to be as interested. We don't need a close-up, especially not at the expense of an image of the room that they are in.
9. Include important views. We get a surprising number of briefs where the view from the room is a really important feature. Favourites are city views, sea views and country views, so if you've got them, flaunt them.
10. Don't pretend to be something you're not. This only wastes everyone's time, including your own. Keep your photographs as realistic as possible so that they are a true reflection of what the client will find when they turn up to recce or shoot.
And finally, leave out people, pets and personal items - they won't make your property more appealing. If anything, they'll just be a distraction.
Step by step guide to photographing your home
When we load your photographs onto our site, we usually organise them in the way you would expect if someone was showing you their new home. It helps us (and you) if you keep this in mind, and take your photos as if you are going around for the first time:
Step 1. Start by taking pictures of the outside, including the garden and any outbuildings. A photo of the drive and parking area is useful, especially for big productions which will want to get a feel for how many vehicles you can accommodate. Make sure you get a perfect shot of the front of your house. Location managers can often get a good feel of what lies inside if they know what type and period of property it is.
Step 2. Go into the house from the front door and photograph the hall and stairs, followed by the principal downstairs rooms. Make sure that you photograph each room from every corner starting from the door you entered by. If the room has a great feature, like a fireplace or a view, then make sure you capture it. If you have interconnecting rooms, it often helps to get a view through from one room to the next.
Step 3. Photograph the stairs and landing and all the bedrooms where you would allow a crew to shoot. If you have ensuite bathrooms, make sure they are visible from the bedrooms too so that the location manager or photographer can get an idea of the layout.
Step 4. Cellars, basements and roofs - if they are accessible to a film crew and you will allow filming in them, then photograph them too.
Step 5. Gardens, pools, lakes and outside features. The external photos don't have to be as extensive as the interiors. Features like swimming pools and lakes can be sought-after, so make sure you include them. Tip: if you do have a swimming pool, a summer shot will be much more enticing than a photo of a pool cover in the depths of winter.
How many photographs do you need?
Answer: lots! It is much more common for us to have too few photographs than too many. And in this digital age, taking and sending new photos is easy. If your photos keep a client guessing about what is on the other side of a room, then you haven't taken enough. Start with lots, and if we need to trim down the number, we will.
"If your photos keep a client guessing about what is on the other side of a room, then you haven't taken enough."
