Top tips to prepare your property for a photoshoot.
What can you personally do to make your property more presentable? While styling is important, think more about ‘de-cluttering’. ‘Less is more’. Herer are some of the most important elements to consider or give special attention to before your property photoshoot.
❑ Windows – The most important! Clean important main room windows. A hazy window instantly destroys a view when light hits it. It also makes the property look unmaintained and old.
❑ Infant sleep times – Be mindful of the times we are due to photograph your property. Allow for 2 hours. If you share your main bedroom with an infant’s cot (we need to shoot this room!), it may be best to pre-plan and move the loved one to another less important room prior to the shoot.
❑ Pool – To make a statement it’s best to remove the pool cleaner the day before to avoid a watery mess on the day. Including the removal of any pool toys. Remember to include seating cushions and deck chairs.
❑ Kitchen – We want to sell the lifestyle of a beautifully well-planned kitchen, therefore de-clutter is best. Leave something like a coffee maker to sell the lifestyle or perhaps a toaster to show some functionality, nothing more! Styling with cooking utensils by the stove along with a fruit bowl on an island bench to suggest healthy eating is great. This leaves us with plenty of bench space for preparing food in the buyer’s mind.
❑ Bathrooms – Again, de-clutter is best, removing all cleaning products and your array of toothbrushes and dental hygiene products. We want to think that there is a place to put everything by not seeing it. Also, ensure your mirror is thoroughly cleaned as toothpaste and watermarks will show up. Don’t forget to clean your shower recess and clean the tile grout which is almost impossible to clean in post-production.
❑ Gardens – Please don’t hose down pathways in the hours before we arrive as this leads to partly dry concrete that does not look presentable! We will also then bring wet footprints onto shiny wooden or tiled floors. Doing gardening the week prior however is perfect. It gives time for the garden to settle.
❑ Rubbish collections & bins – If you see old couches and fridges starting to pile up on your nature strip then it may not be the best time to photograph the front of your property. Be mindful of this and pre-plan the removal of the pile. Also, remember to put your council bins away after collection night.
❑ Guttering – specifically not the guttering itself but more focusing on the eaves with years of built-up cobwebs hanging under them. Get a broom and quickly brush them down. This helps to remove the ageing appeal of the property.
❑ Weather – this we can’t plan! However, 90% of the time we can easily still go ahead. Advanced retouching skills allow us to replace skies and brighten rooms with low-light sensor cameras. Just let us know if you have some important views that would need some sunshine – this we will need to reschedule or come back for.
❑ Styling – As a general rule, ‘Less is more’. This means decluttering. You may want to create a junk room before the photoshoot. Best speak with your marketing agent who will give you a strategy.
❑ Fireplaces – Don’t worry about lighting your fireplace. It never shows up properly in a picture anyway. Instead, we insert the fire in our postproduction service. Easy!
❑ Washing day – if you can hold off just one more day before doing 3 loads of washing that would be ideal. Busy clotheslines or accidentally capturing a clothes trestle in a view or reflection is not attractive.
❑ Pets – Be mindful that God’s little creatures may be curious or even a little territorial. Ask a neighbour to mind them to avoid photobombing or knocking expensive photographic equipment over.
