A Picture is Now Worth One Thousand, Two Hundred Fifty Words

This article originally appeared on this website on Feb 21, 2014. It is expanded and edited to appear here today.

We know a picture is worth more than a couple of words, and in fact, it is worth much more than a thousand words when you are trying to sell something. Occasionally people won’t even consider buying a car, piece of furniture, a widget, or even a house is they can’t see a picture. We are a visual bunch, and without so much as a glimpse of a glance, we’re not sure if we are interested enough to be interested.

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Sellers on e-bay spend considerable time and effort to take elaborate and detailed pictures of a fifteen dollar car-part for sale, but home-sellers think that they can snap an out-of-focus picture of a dark corner of a bedroom with a cell phone, and that will cause buyers to consider spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For All You Non-Photographers Out There.

Base your effort on your possible reward. Go ahead and have a professional do a photo-shoot package of your home, including a video tour if you can afford it. It will go farther than almost any other expense you could incur.

If you absolutely cannot afford to do this, then try the cheap way, and borrow, or even rent the following type of equipment.

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Get a single-lens digital camera with an interchangeable lens system, one with a large “live back” will be better for this project than peering through a view-finder. Get a zoom, wide-angle lens, 10 -20mm and put it on the camera. Get a tripod adjusted to about 40 inches in height and mount the camera.

As you look at the room to compose the picture, zoom the lens out to take in a good amount of the room, a lot more than a normal picture, but not so much as to make it look cartoonish. You just want the room to be able to “breath” in the photo, with no cramped spaces.

I See the Light!

If you intend to use a flash, don’t use the built-in flash, because the size of the lens will cast a shadow in front of the camera. Use a separate flash unit pointed up.

Experiment a bit before you do the shoot. I always preferred not to use flash, but that meant using ambient light, slowing down the shutter speed, and using a remote control since it is so slow. Here again, experiment with the aperture-priority setting until you like it, then leave it set through the session.

You will be spending a good bit more time doing it this way, but it will be worth it. Try doing a room or two at a time, then download and process them to see how you like them. Then take some more. Your Picassa software give you some adjustment capabilities on your computer after the shoot.

Tap or click image for more about camera.

Find more on pix making you more dollars on your home sale in later articles and in my books. Here’s a little bit more in an article I wrote about my favorite camera HERE.

When I first started doing this type of FSBO listing, I used to have the pleasure of being able to sit with my customers at their kitchen table to answer as many questions they might have.

Then I was able to take pictures of the home for them, if they wanted. I was able to spend long periods with each of my customers back then. People seemed to like that.

Now, we are working in Knoxville, to Chattanooga, to Memphis, as well as Nashville, so I don’t get to take and edit each picture anymore. I do miss that.

But now, some people have professionals take some magnificent pictures, and that is great, but does cost money.

Many of my customers just take pictures with their smart phone. This is usually great, as long as they do four things.

Hold the phone horizontally.
Compose the shot so that it includes the whole room.
Find a way to hold the camera still, even if you have to lean on something.
Look at the picture you end up with – if it’s not good, TAKE IT OVER.

My book on photography is available HERE. Thanks for now… let’s talk if you want to.

I am the Reasonable Realtor, Don Martin, MARTIN PROPERTIES (615) 973-8970. Just make your comments here, or you can reach the Dean of Graduated Realtors here on this site, or “like” him at http://www.facebook.com/MartinProps

Photo by David Veksler on Unsplash

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