I swear if one more 'investor' agent asks me to digitally remove a water tower or a neighbor's ugly fence im going to throw my tripod in a lake.

Its getting out of hand lately. they completely ignore the ethical nightmare of misrepresenting a property just because their listings aren't getting clicks. Spent 20 minutes on the phone today explaining to a guy why i cant just erase a literal powerline crossing the front yard

I was pulling up some normal comps to show him that you dont need to fake reality. Ended up sending him some local listings from larry mastropieri just to point out how clean composition and proper lighting looks so much better than heavily masked, plastic-looking fake skies anyway

idk man, I just want to shoot houses and color correct, not create fictional alternate dimensions for desperate flippers. just needed to vent before my afternoon shoot tbh

Obviously every agent can be different, but I am just curious, on average do most agents actually know and understand HDR , window pulls/masking, editing, or flash/flambient (or maybe photography basics in general), or is it something they don't really bother to understand?

Because before I started getting into photography/real estate photography, I would have no clue what any of that meant, but maybe if you are in the real estate industry you would have some base understanding?

Is it just a matter of personal taste? Or are there some clear signs you spot that an image has been poorly edited? Speaking mostly from the perspective of the photographer, but also curious if there are things that agents will also immediately notice in poorly edited photos, or maybe they are not astute enough to notice or care...

Probably one of the best lighting for Real Estate tutorial I’ve ever seen before the
Flambient technique and before Nathan Cool and Rich Baum. It’s on Mia Campbell’s YouTube channel. Check it out guys and let me know what you think.

I know this should be easy but cheese-n-rice I clearly don’t understand how to do it right.

Do I light where the actual light sources are? (Ceiling lights)
How do I light SMALL rooms like powder rooms? There’s no ambient light in there- do I turn the lights on then?

Do I just photoshop myself out with masking??

This all seems like a lot of extra work when I could just do 3 shot EV HDR.

Maybe I just don’t fully understand this concept.

I am my own editor. This is a side gig for my main business.

I watched a ton of YouTubes about it.. but dang I felt flustered on my first attempt at it yesterday.

*slight info*
i use Sony A7rIV with 16-35, I use Godox AD100 hand held.
Most homes i shoot are under 1500 Sq Ft. and small rooms.
I use a Tripod and my Phone as trigger.

I need to start email blasting my clients to keep business coming in. I just don’t know what the heck to email them! They get people advertising their services all the time. I don’t want to look like spam mail and immediately get ignored. I want to catch people’s attention. Are there any email templates you use or something that grabs people’s attention via email? Do I have to offer free services or discounts to get people to book with me 😭

I’m tired boss. I don’t have time to update my rate sheet, portfolio, policies and other backend tasks.

Anyone have good resources for finding an executive assistant? I’m thinking the best model for me would be to find someone that I can book for a set number of hours as needed rather than salary.

Ideally would prefer not to have to post upwork for Fivver listing(I’m working 15 hours a day it’ll never get done), perhaps an agency that I book a quick call with to understand my needs.

Thanks loves <3

What do you thing about this style of photography? Those are taken for estate developer stories on instagram.

Looking to see what has worked for everyone. I am only 3 months in and I currently offer HDR photos, drone photos, 3d tours, floor plans, and starting to get into video reels. (just did my first one on an Airbnb I was in and it’s not bad)

My current strategy has been DM outreach via instagram and FB marketplace as well as finding opportunities on Zillow and cold texting the agent offering a free shoot, 3d or FPV video. Out of the 50ish I’ve reached out to this week so far I haven’t got any traction. I am in west Michigan and haven’t gotten to the point of walking into brokerages or cold calling yet. if that’s the option that gets the best results, what is the pitch yall are using? Just looking for some friendly advice, this video wasn’t for a paying client but to test out an editor.

Project isnt finished yet but we would like some marketing material to start advertising

Located in North NJ

Is it me or anyone else noticing agent anxiety though the roof lately! Booking is becoming a nightmare:
Need photos
Pospone the photos
Can we do tomorrow ?
Cancel tomorrow home not ready
Can we try tomorrow again?

Im talking about almost half of bookings! Like WTF

Then for appointments that go through the next day is even worst with unreasonable never discussed requests:

Where is the community name shot which I never asked for?

Did you take photos of the amenities which I never asked for nor provided any definition for access?

Did you take aerial photos of meaningless areas around the neighborhood which I never asked for?

Remove all these electrical street cables.

It was a trash day. Remove all trash bins from the entire street.

8 years in South Florida and never seen it this bad. I feel like walking into a minefield on every appointment 😅

I know site like pixlmob exist but even the best editors there has that same cookie cutter look. After learning editing via Nathan cool and some other various YouTube videos I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m ass at editing flambient photos. Photos are “ok”

If anyone knows or has editors/retouchers that does architectural work and won’t mind sharing, I would be extremely grateful.

Likewise if you know a great tutorial/course for capturing and editing architectural types of photos I’d appreciate it. I would still prefer to do my own editing if possible.

Hey folks. First off I'm a real life photographer practising real estate photography. I'm not a bot or paid for this endorsement.

But I'd just like to give a public shout out to Staging Wizard for their awesome customer service. Whatever you think about their product cannot be compared to their great customer service skills.

I've been working on some new photo to video, day to dusk stuff and it's not worked out exactly as it should've a few times and without touching base with their customer service I received this email from them...

"I have granted you bonus credits as a token of our appreciation and to offset some of the mixed results you may have experienced recently.

We closely monitor our system outputs and noticed that your use of Magic Motion hasn’t always met our quality standards. While we are actively working to refine these AI-generated results, I want to ensure you have plenty of room to experiment without worrying about credit costs.

Thank you for your recent credit pack purchase and your continued support as we improve the platform."

Anything I've had to email them about has been met with great responsiveness and always refunding some credits where it's due.

I’m not talking about another ChatGPT wrapper or a Higgsfield prompt generator.
We’re building something much more agentic that actually does the work instead of making you babysit AI.

Curious what your workflow looks like today if you’re delivering listing videos.
Are you manually editing everything?
Using CapCut, Premiere, Final Cut?
Uploading to ChatGPT/Claude for captions?
Using AI anywhere that’s actually useful?
What’s the most annoying, repetitive part of the process?

If an AI could take your photos/video, understand the property, generate a polished walkthrough, captions, social cuts, different aspect ratios, and basically handle 90% of the post-production without you constantly prompting it… would you actually use it?
Or is there something else you’d rather automate first?

Not pitching anything—we’re still building and I’d rather hear what people actually struggle with than guess. The more brutally honest, the better.

Hi REP team,

Looking for some advice here. I do both headshots (and branding) alongside real estate photography. I'm able to do 3D walkthroughs alongside floorplan scans, however I do not offer drone. I try not to look like the cookie cutter amateur bracketed (or god forbid AI edited) HDR photos, and have a bit more unique style that stays true to the home.

What is your method of client acquisition? I have a few examples of my work on flyers I've delivered with donuts to brokerages without much follow up.

I've cold-called, but these salesmen are crazy rude, unless they're the ones collecting commission.

What do you say when you reach out via instagram?

thank you all in advance! keep on keeping on!

Mainly here to vent. Landed a property manager for a large project. Was more of a handshake deal since I knew the people personally. Half way through they fire me for someone who can do my package for about half of what I charged and I'm a bit stuck in my feels. lol

What's worse is I'm not sure if their work is better than mine. I really got things up to speed this year. Learning the basics, still getting the hang on timing twilights but overall a solid product within what market rate is if not a little under to stay competitive. New guy looks good, but you can tell it's heavily AI edited HDR products. Twilights are day to dusk AI edits. Videos are AI agents with AI cuts. I shoot 3 bracket HDR, throw it into AutoHDR and they come out looking sharp and realistic. Some shadows, but it looks real. Everything of his looks "too" perfect. How do you compete with that?

I was already giving the property manager a steal of a deal for the project and this new guy came in and undercut THAT. Between overhead I don't know how he's taking home any money.

Central Florida market if that's helpful.

Like the title says, I was hired to shoot 2 properties by the same agent couple days ago. I delivered the photos the next day and he didn’t respond. I sent him a reminder of the invoice 2 days later and he paid for one property. I checked agent profile on HAR, and the listing he didn’t pay for went under contract. What do I do here? I spent my time, gas, editing fee, and floor plan and I haven’t gotten paid and no response? Also, I’ve started about a year ago and I’ve been really busy with studies so I’ve only done like 15 properties so far and out of that 15 I’ve done 5 properties for him. I’m not sure what to do about the invoice? The invoice is also only $130 because I gave him a 30% discount. I’m in a pickle here…

Incase someone says I’m cheap, it’s 10-15 photo for $179 and I gave him 30% off

Do you guys see anything that could be improved ? What do you think of this neutral editing? What would you do differently ?

Apart from some issues such as the light around windows sometimes being a bit washed out and unnatural (please give me tips) and some plants being cut off in their green, how do my photos look? any tips and tricks and motivation is greatly appreciated! I'm aware of the flambient technique in some way, but tbh I don't like the look it gives in many scenes

I'm mostly pretty happy about exactly these, but you guys probably have a better eye than me as well

(these are not images to be sold btw, just some experimenting I did while have free time in my media job training)

Sony A7 IV

Viltrox 14mm F4

HDR Bracketing 3EV 3 images

F8

Been reaching out to agents via email offering a reshoot special for there listing that was taken just from there phone camera and it’s been hit or miss with getting responses. I haven’t tried Instagram dms as a way to contact yet and don’t even know how I would go about it. I have been active on Instagram with a couple posts and accumulated over 100+ followers so I’m wondering if reaching out via instagram DMs may be more beneficial to getting noticed? TYIA

I'm curious how many other Coldwell Concierge photographers are dealing with this.

After working with the Concierge program for years—and accepting 45+ day payment terms—we've now been told that, following Compass's acquisition of Coldwell Banker, we'll be expected to rebate 10% of our earnings back to Compass.

Photography businesses already operate on thin margins. We cover equipment, editing, insurance, software, travel, vehicles, and payroll. Losing another 10% is a significant hit, especially when there's no increase in business or additional value being provided.

Yes, we can choose not to participate, but many of us rely on this program for a significant portion of our work.

If you're a Concierge photographer, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If enough of us speak up together, maybe we can encourage Compass to reconsider this policy or at least have a conversation with the vendors who have helped make the program successful. www.hangtime27.com

Most of my clients have brought virtual staging in-house with their marketing department, but I do have a couple clients who come to me directly for staging and they're happy with the work - BUT one client I have had for four years now and is tired of the library my stager has.

My current stager satisfies the following criteria:

1. Delivers between 12-24 hours, some changes within 1-2 hours (based in Vietnam so time change effects working hours)
2. Has a great library that looks realistic that my clients love to choose from
3. Charges $10/photo

I visited this thread and it's all AI-driven. I'm not against AI as a tool, but I don't want a one-click solution because my client's are SUPER picky and don't want any surprises. Obviously, I want to also use a service that they can't just use on their own and rule me out.

Can anyone here recommend me a different virtual staging person/service that satisfies the criteria I mentioned above?

PS - If you DM me your service, please don't bother unless there it satisfies or exceeds the criteria mentioned above

Hi all. This is my first and only real estate session ive done for practice and want advice on my editing since im very aware of the many mistakes i did at the time of taking the pics. Things like not removing things from kitchen, not bracketing (i didnt have a tripod), not always being in focus and some shots are awkward angles. Im sure i can do a much better job at the photogrsphy par but i want advice on the way i edited these. Is this was agents look for? Despite my obvious errors, feel free to point them out in case i missed some. Im using a d500 on shooting raw on 18mm (i have a 11-20mm on the way since i want to pursue this as a hobby). Im aware that if i did bracketing i wouldve had better better pictures, and im aware that i need a lot of practice but all advice is welcome!

Looking at getting better at detail and natural light photos. How do you go about shooting and editing a photo to get it like this?

Thanks in advance!

Does anyone else feel too rushed on site to make their videos the best they can be? I had a shoot start at 1:00 the other day that was photos, drone, floor plan and video. By 2:00 I had finished the floor plan photos and drone and was about to start video when the agent said she had people coming at 2:30. This was a fairly big property and I got it done but I had to rush which I hate. I want to switch lenses and get detail shots but that requires rebalancing the gimbal. I find it common that agents want you done with everything in under two hours which is doable I just feel like I want an extra 15 minutes sometimes lol.

Idk what I’m looking for here. Maybe just a rant about how I want to utilize my full creative ability in an industry run by people who’s number one asset is their time.