Every now and then I trawl through the photo libraries on my computer and find stuff I’d forgotton about. Like these pictures of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library, which I took aaaaaaaaages ago on a trip home to Canada. I’d always intended to ‘do something’ with them, but of course life gets busy and the best intentions of finishing off personal projects tend to give way to rent-paying work.

Well, my rent is paid up until the end of the month so what better time to dig through the dusty folders of my hard drive and shine the light of day on some forgotton treasures.

If you ever visit Vancouver, the central library building is worth a look. Reminiscient of the famous Roman Colosseum, it’s quite a fantastic place just to walk around, whether you even feel like perusing the books or not. Film and TV buffs may recognise the location as it’s been used in the films The 6th Day and Mr Magoo and also the recent Battlestar Galactica TV series.

The local weather was typically dreary and wet when I was there, but I think it lends a certain cool starkness that I quite like.

The interior areas of the main building are well used by students and acadmics who populate the many study desks scattered around. From the higher levels you get an amazing and somewhat voyeuristic view.

You see, nothing is more annoying to my friend (and thousands of others who peruse property ads) than amateur photos that show only one corner of the room and give no sense of the scale or dynamics of the property.

“Oh yes,” the agent gushed “We’re renowned for our photography, and we’ve got a wide-angle lens.”

Well, not only did they not have a wide angle lens, but the photographs they took did not show off the property very well at all, generally making it seem much smaller than it actually is.  I should know, because I’ve spent many an evening around there drinking wine and playing Settlers of Catan.

Here’s a lesson I would like everyone to learn: Real Estate Agents are Not Photographers – no matter what they tell you.

Good real estate photography isn’t about trying to make rooms look bigger than they really are, but about showing how the areas and laid out and what features they contain. For example, my friend’s bedroom has two separate built-in wardrobes, room for a chest of drawers and laundry hamper, a huge bay window overlooking the front garden, and access to an adjoining sunroom.

And here’s the photo the real estate agent took to show off the bedroom and all its features:

It looks tiny, like you can only fit a bed in and nothing else, and it also looks like there’s only one wardrobe. Obviously whoever took the photos was limited by the angle of view and could only fit in a small part of the room. But even so, they didn’t bother to take multiple images to at least show off the rest of the room.

So, my friend asked if I could photograph the house so she could make a new ad. Not only did I use a wide-angle lens to show off the rooms (the Canon 17-40mm f4 from the pro L series), I used some simple bounce flash (with the 580 EX II) to ensure the rooms were well illuminated. A bit of perspective correction and sharpening was added in post, and the photos were correctly resized for web to preserve their sharpness and ‘snap’.

Here are the photos I created of the bedroom:

Using the new snazzier house photos, my friend was able to put together a MUCH more attractive ad for her rental property, and ran it on the same real estate website as the original agent’s ad. Interestingly, the agent’s ad had already been up for a week and they’d had nobody interested in looking at the house. My friend put up her own ad with the new photos one day after lunch and within a few hours she had 3 different people booked in to view it that evening.

If you own a property and are looking to rent it or sell it, either hire a professional photographer (and not your wedding photographer, but one that specialises in interiors!) – OR be adamant that your agent uses a professional photographer. If you think the agent’s photos aren’t up to scratch, tell them so and organise a photographer yourself.

Here’s the photos of my friend’s property – both the original agent photos and the new ones I created. Which house looks more enticing? (all photos are shown at the actual size they appeared online. I resized my images to exactly fit the image frame size of the website on which the ad was to appear)

Exterior and front yard:

Agent photos

Photographer Photos:

Lounge

Agent photo

Photographer photo

Dining area

Agent photo

Photographer photos

Kitchen

Agent photo

Photographer photo

Second bedroom

Agent photo

Photographer photos

Bathroom

Agent photos

Photographer photos:

I went there this week to photograph the new cafe. It’s situated in a fantastic heritage building in the centre of town, and I’m sure it’s going to be hugely popular with locals (there was a steady stream of patrons on the Monday morning I was there photographing). In addition to the usual exterior and interior shots I do for Coffee Culture, co-owner Murray asked if I could get some ‘behind the counter’ action shots, as well as some general promo shots of him and some of the staff.

It was great fun and I got some fab images that Coffee Culture will be able to use for all kinds of promtional activities. Here’s a sample of some of my favourites.

This week I shot the interior of the Merivale Coffee Culture, which has just undergone a refurbishment. The place looks fantastic – very light and airy with really nice pistachio green accents.

Here are some of the shots of the interior:

One of my favourite clients is Canterbury-based cafe chain Coffee Culture. I’ve done a number of photography assignments for them over the years, including location photography for a number of their premises, as well as a commission for a large panoranic image of iconic Lyttelton Harbour that hangs in their Lyttelton cafe on London Street.

Earlier this week I went down to Coffee Culture’s newest location in Beckenham, at Colombo & Tennyson Streets. I had a chat to the owner a few days prior and he noted that the place took on a fabulous atmosphere in the evening due to the unique lighting design, and he wanted to capture this ‘cosy’ feeling in the photographs.

He was right – the light fixtures were amazing! It’s a fantastic interior design, and if you’re in the area I suggest you stop in for a coffee and a delicious Denheath custard square.

Here are a few of the final images of the Coffee Culture interior photoshoot: