Consider Alternative Camera Angles For Your Listing Photos

Most listing photos feature the front exterior of the home as the primary photo, and 95% of the time this photo is composed in exactly the same, predictable way. The photographer stands across the street (or in the middle of the street) and takes a straight-on, shoulder-high view of the home.

If the photographer happens to be the listing agent, they might be missing an opportunity to get more attention for their listing by not considering alternative camera angles for the all-important front exterior shot. The traditional front-on viewpoint tends to makes the subject property more like all the others. This effect is evident when browsing through online real estate listings. The small images presented on real estate web sites leave little opportunity for standing out, but there is some room.

Remember, real estate agents are not just contract negotiators. If they are taking listing photos, they are doing an important part of their own marketing, and they should be expected to think creatively about how to present their product in its best light.

Here are a several examples illustrating how non-traditional camera angles help the primary listing photo stand out and look more appealing than the standard shot.

First, here's a house that's sideways, and the listing photo takes that at face value and presents the side of the house as if it were the front of the house:

The image above shows the actual street view of the property. Maybe the agent felt that there is some rule that the street view must be the primary (and in this case, the only) listing photo. That's a pity. Even though it's a rather unimpressive house, it looks better from another angle. See the photo we shot of this same house, below.

A wide angle lens and an alternative camera angle were the keys to making this look like a potentially appealing house. Instead of taking a straight-on shot, we stood on the sidewalk at the right corner of the lot. We got down low to reduce the amount of pavement in the picture. You'll see two doors in our shot. The one toward the rear is actually a masonry-framed front entrance to the home. So the right elevation in our photo turns out to be the front of the house, and the left elevation, which was presented as the primary photo by the agent, is visible in our image but is no longer the whole story.

Next, I'm going to pick on a listing photo that I've previously held up as an example of poor real estate photography, this time focusing on the camera angle. Never mind the fact that the agent's photo has a deep blue cast.

Here's the agent's listing photo. Keep in mind that this home is being offered for nearly $1 million, by an agent working for one of the major real estate firms.

The agent's photo was taken from across the street. Although cropping would have helped the composition, the narrow-angle lens that the listing agent used required standing fairly far back to get the whole house in the picture.

We re-shot the house with a wide angle lens, enabling us to get in closer. But there's more. Take a look at the result below and see if you can figure out what else we did differently.

In our photo, we stood at the front gate that is visible in the agent's photo. The low fence in the front of the house was blocking the view of the front yard's landscaping.

Our solution was to not only stand where the landscaping could be seen by the camera, but also to elevate the camera to a height of about ten feet above the ground. The effect is to give even more prominence to the lawn, helping to offset the monolithic front elevation of the home, and warming up the photo. The overall composition contains less sky, more house, no pavement and attractive greenery.

By the way, we did not need to use an expensive elevated camera rig to get this shot. We just held the camera tripod up at arm's length and took a few shots using the automatic timer to trigger the shutter. Very low-tech, but it worked.

So, getting in closer and raising the camera up is another way to change the camera perspective and obtain a more pleasing picture.

In this third and final example, we'll see how the listing agent's photo missed out an a terrific opportunity to use a corner lot to great advantage.

Here's the agent's listing photo:

This is the typical, blah, straight-on shot. If you add up all the space given to the features of least interest to potential buyers, (street, sidewalk, driveway, garage) they add up to nearly half the picture area.
The quirky topiary landscaping might be considered a dated feature by younger home buyers looking for homes in this price range. The untended mow-strip in the right foreground is a definite turn-off. You'd never know from this photo that the home is situated on a corner lot with lush, park-like landscaping on the right.

We usually try to avoid straight-on camera angles because, as seen above, they are cliche and do not distinguish the subject from its competition.

With great delight we chose a camera position located on the sidewalk at the lot's corner. We lowered the camera to about two feet above ground, framing the house in the more colorful landscaping that is out of view in the listing agent's photo:

In our photo, the house now says "Look at me, surrounded by my lush landscaping!" The front door is still visible, but the garage is no longer prominent, and there is virtually no pavement. Same property, but now it looks like it's in a park.

Is this lying? No, it's just packaging. The agent could still include the standard frontal view in the set of listing photos that end up on the MLS, but this photo will generate many more clicks than the agent's sterile, unimaginative photo.

To summarize, the quality, distinctiveness and effectiveness of listing photos can be greatly improved just by thinking carefully about where to stand and how high to hold the camera before you click the shutter release.