A picture is worth a thousand words….

The last five years have witnessed a dramatic improvement in the clever use of photography by selling agents; from carefully composed shots, the use of video and ‘walk-through’ apps – and now through the use of drones.

When all’s said and done, though, the purpose of photographs in agents’ details is merely to inspire a buyer to want to look at a property for themselves.  Looking back through the collection of some 18,000 brochures that we have amassed over the past twenty years, we are more often than not left with the impression that ‘less is more’

There is no doubt that the ‘photo-journalistic’ approach adopted by #Inigo and #house partnership (where a blurry vase of flowers partly obscures a polished door nob) conveys ‘atmosphere’  – presumably why more of their competitors are adopting this approach. But does it inspire a buyer to want to drop everything and rush to look at the property?

Likewise the increased use of drone shots.  Few of us will look down on our property from 500 feet above the ground – so, whilst a drone shot can encapsulate the setting of a house with its outbuildings, facilities and grounds, it can all too frequently suggest a distant view that is simply not achieved from ground level….

There is no doubt that the new ‘apps’ that enable a buyer to ‘walk round’ a house from the comfort of their own lap-top can clarify whether a house could be suitable, in a way that some photographs and a floorplan might not – but, even then, they don’t give the complete picture (of, for example,  the aspects from the windows or possible traffic noise).

The temptation to use a large number of very attractive photographs over many pages of a brochure therefore runs the danger, not only of ‘over-gilding the lily’, but of over-emphasising features that might deter a buyer…..(a pink Aga, for example!).   

So the best photography is that which motivates the buyer to look for themselves and, having done so, leave them more impressed that they had expected to be!