Photography For Real Estate ? Marketing Involves Making Stuff ...

Mike Yother (aka: Swampman) sent me a link to this video that was hot last week. The video shows the food styling that goes on by MacDonald?s of Canada in?preparation?for shooting marketing photos for fast food.

There are some lessons for real estate shooters here because what real estate shooters are doing is very much the same as the food photographers in this video; the product is just different:

• Did you notice the key phrase that Hope uses, ?we want to show the product in it?s best possible light?? She is not in the least?apologetic?that products you buy at Micky-D?s look nothing like the marketing photos. In fact she is proud to be showing her product ?in the best possible light?!
• Great interior photographs work the same way. Most great interior photographs have a stylist/stager/designer involved? they arrange furniture and decor instead of?pickles and?condiments.
• This video got 5+ million views in about 3 days, probably because people were?stunned?to see what?s done to promote burgers. Many of these people were probably outraged by the deception but you have to be pretty?naive to not understand that this is going on.
• The same kind of styling should and frequently does go on when selling mid-priced and upper-end properties. Frequently when we sell homes we spend considerable time and energy to stage/style the property. It?s usually worth it.
• Frequently people bring up the use of photoshop, wide-angle lenses and believe that some how showing a product in it?s best possible light is some how deceptive. Perhaps, but those that have that point of view should get over it and realize that in most modern cultures this is what goes on and you need to do it to compete in the market.

Over the years we?ve had discussions here on the PFRE blog about where the photo editing boundaries?are for real estate photography. I?ve summarized the several discussions we?ve had on the Ethics page (it?s the ?Code of Ethics? link under Other Links on the right side-bar. One special factor in real estate that isn?t present in most other sales professions is that?agent licensing law usually specifies that real estate agents can not materially misrepresent a property. Generally that means agents should not misrepresent the physical properties of a property.

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