I wanted to do another one on real estate photography. This is regarding views from inside. I recently shoot a great property in Austin area on Lake Travis, and then just the other day on Lake McQueeny.

If your property has a great view, especially when the vantage point is inside (you don’t have to go on the porch or up the hill, etc. to enjoy it) then you will want to showcase that view in your interior photos.  Most of the time it is really dark inside and really bright outside and this contrast is what separates the professional from the amateur in picking up interior detail, while not blowing out the highlights, (the view out the window). What needs to be thought about is conveying the view outside. So before your photographer is called in have a few things already done:

• Have the window, glass door, sliding door what ever it is you are shooting through cleaned, inside and out. If you go to open the blinds and a dog has been jumping on the glass, or dirt film, or kids drawings, it will make a bad photograph.
• Have exterior screens moved.
• Have the items outside arranged and staged. If there is a great view to Lake Travis but there is a huge mess on the porch just outside, the viewers’ eyes will never make it to the lake.
• Have the window/door dressings arranged and in order, if there are pieces or components missing from the dressings them remove them completely.
• I don’t want to get into the stagers job here, but have the interior staged where it looks like people usually position themselves for the view. In other words don’t have the majority of the couches and chairs with there back against the view.

Not having these items already performed puts me in the position especially if I am there by myself to shift out of my workflow and start doing administrative items, which drags out a session by hours.

Look at the photo below from Treasure Island in McQueeny how the view and your eye drifts from inside, then it finds the canal in the far backgroud, then it finds the porch just outside, then the porch leads to the pool.