Photographs from my time away

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I've been practicing my photography skills whilst away from "245 days" in the last week.  I am now trying to match the skills I am learning to the end product of photographing property and making it more saleable as a result.

This is my take on not following the crowd when I was in London and taking a photo of Big Ben.  I moved away from the tourist crowds and looked at the building through different eyes.  I hope to be able to use my eye for seeing something different and the framing effect when photographing houses.

This photo of the underside of a bridge in Central London is testament to my desire to overcome the fear of light and shadow in my photos.  In terms of taking photos of someone's property, the effect that light and shadows can have will add to the interest in the photo and hopefully this will translate into click-through.

The green and blues from the field and sky in this photo and setting up what I want to do when taking marketing photos of the gardens that belong to my client's property.  I see so many photos taken that do not conform to the rule of thirds, and this does the garden a disservice.  Being able to see the sky too will remind potential buyers of what they will be in the garden for.

I think that a lot of estate agents are afraid to embrace the seasons as they may date the property, and how long it has been on the market.  As an agent that believes he will sell every property quickly, I don't have this hang-up.  It's also really easy to go back to the property and re-take any photos that may be a giveaway that the property has been on the market for a little while - Autumn l;eaves, snow, Christmas decorations, paddling pools, etc.

Taking these photos has helped me to think about the photographer, estate agent and marketer that I want to be.

Some of my inspirations

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You can be inspired in all sorts of ways by all sorts of people.  Some of my inspirations are as follows-

Music
I love the music of Hootie and the Blowfish, and their lead singer Darius Rucker.  They can be found all over You Tube, but they also have a jukebox on their website-

http://www.hootie.com/internal.asp?catID=21218#content

I also love the music of Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and David Gray.

Art
I love all types of art and have been to many art museums in cities all over the World.  My favourite artist is Mark Rothko.  I don't get into the whole modern art debate, I just like his paintings-

Television

I think that TV is starting to take over from the movies as the premium entertainment vehicle of it's genre. Recent programmes that have caught my attention include True Detective, Hannibal and the recent Dr Who

series have been excellent.  My favourite show has just finished airing in the UK, it's the US version of The Office.  The characters had more depth and more time to develop than the UK predecessor, and the programme was witty, funny and hugely entertaining every single week.




I think that originality and creativity runs through the likes I have for all of these things, and I hope that shows in my work. How about you?

Enthusiasm sometimes gets the better of me

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I'm having to rein in my imagination and enthusiasm a little today, I'm raring to go with my estate agency and I'd open it tomorrow if I was a bit more impetuous. It's been a long-standing dream and I won't rest until I get to do this for myself, but it has to open right and correct. I want to take my local market by storm, so I have to get everything properly formed before I start advertising and get people on the phone to start me marketing their property.

Imagination and enthusiasm

This has run away with me a little over the last few days. I want to have a website, 4 blogs, 2 You Tube accounts, 4 accounts in other social media, market every day and still have time to do all the other things I carry out now - surveys, consumer trials, mystery shopping, writing books and buying and selling books and video games. I have to be realistic and decide when to switch these things off to concentrate on getting this business right. It will be after Christmas to start switching things off, with the most time-consuming going first.

I have also got to rein in my ideas for the business. I'm sure that loads of tech and kit will make it interesting for me, but it needs to be cost-effective and the right thing for my customers. I've looked at tech for showing properties to customers, for sale boards with tech to contact customers walking or driving by, expensive laptops, producing glossy brochures for advertising each property for sale, etc.

I've consigned all of this to the trash pile, as it's a group of things that I would believe added a small amount to the process but at a high cost to the business - and ultimately to the customer.

I'm focussing on the things I need to get in order first, and developing my ideas about where I want to go with this, what I want to be and what I want to achieve.