Whether you are shooting with a top-of-the-line camera or your smartphone, the most important part of taking real estate photos is good composition. While every photographer has a slightly different idea of what good composition is, they mostly agree on the basics, which will be covered here. Because bad composition is very noticeable, the main goal of good composition is to be unnoticeable to the average person. This leads people to feel comfortable looking at your photos and makes it both easier to see the entire space and more likely that your photos will resonate more with potential buyers.

The Basics:

The Third Wall

This is by far the most important part of good composition for real estate photos. When you are shooting from a corner, make sure to capture as much of the opposite two walls as well as an extra wall on one side or the other. This helps ground your photos and makes understanding the size of the room easier for people who have yet to set foot in the property. When a photo only shows two walls, it makes it hard to tell if it is taken from far back or close up, but the addition of an extra wall on one side or the other helps illustrate that the photo was taken in the opposite corner and gives a good visual of the true size of the room. As seen in the photos below, making around one-sixth of the frame an extra wall gives the space a more complete look.

In some cases, there won’t be an easy way to include another wall. Whether the wall is covered with cabinets or the rooms are just separated by the edge of a couch or some other piece of furniture, you can simply show the edge of what is included in the room to act as your third wall. The whole concept of a third wall doesn’t have to be a wall; it just has to show something that can be easily identified as the edge of a room, so a potential buyer can quickly see the whole room and give themselves a sense of scale.

Balanced composition

Another very important part of good composition is making sure that everything in your scene is well-balanced. This has the advantage of making your photos easier to look at and look like they were shot with more intention. While well-balanced compositions take a while to master, a good rule of thumb is to find an item that has the most weight in the scene, for example, a bed in a bedroom or an island in a kitchen, and make sure it doesn't sit at the edge of the frame while still retaining a third wall. Remembering this will also help you choose which wall to add to the shot based on what makes the photo look the most balanced.

Different heights per room

Most rooms should be shot slightly below chest height, which makes it so you can see roughly equal amounts of floor and ceiling in one shot. However, there are some exceptions;

When shooting in a kitchen or any room with hanging cabinets, make sure you are shooting high enough that the bottoms of the cabinets aren’t showing. This is less important if the bottoms of the cabinets match the rest of the cabinets, because they are less noticeable.

In addition to raising the camera height for kitchens, make sure to lower the height for bathrooms and smaller rooms. This makes the floor larger in the photo, letting potential buyers see the layout more clearly. This also has the added advantage of the sinks and tubs having their bases hidden.

Straight-on shots

The biggest trend in real estate photography within the past 5 years is the straight-on shot; these are slightly difficult to pull off properly because your camera needs to be perfectly level, pointed directly at the wall, and perfectly centered on the wall. If one of these three things is off, the whole picture will have crooked lines. However, when straight-on shots are done right, they are very pleasing to look at and really help make the property look more luxurious. The easiest way to frame a straight-on shot is to look for a well-balanced scene and step as far back as you can to show the whole scene.

Minimizing distractions

While trying to get your third wall or balance your compositions, you will run into situations where something takes up more of the frame than it should. For example, sometimes when shooting a living room, there will be a dog cage that occupies an entire corner and blocks part of the view of the rest of the room. You can then either step forward to move it out of frame, or you can physically move it to another room until you are done shooting that room. This is especially important in kitchens where, oftentimes, the homeowner has a lot of items on the counter that cause a lot of clutter, or maybe they have a rag hanging off the wall that isn’t very pleasing. Moving the items out of the kitchen to reduce the clutter can help make the space look bigger and can make it easier to balance your composition and ensure the property looks properly prepped so potential buyers can see the home at its best. Be sure to also close shower curtains if there are any personal care items, remove hand towels if they are in the way, close toilet lids, and remove trash cans from photos; this makes the whole property look cleaner and more open.

Mirrors

Mirrors are very annoying to deal with when you don’t know where they are, but they become easy to deal with if you pay enough attention and know how to avoid them. The easiest way to avoid mirrors is to simply look for them while you are doing your first walkthrough and turning on lights, then just watch for them while you are shooting. There is such a thing as unavoidable mirrors, which are usually tucked into corners or by other mirrors. These mirrors are often located in bathrooms or rooms and can be difficult to deal with. The easiest way to avoid these mirrors when shooting with a phone is to move your body out of their so only the phone is visible in frame. Sometimes this doesn’t work, and you’ll need to resort to either editing yourself out of photos or setting your phone up on a tripod and setting it on a timer so you can walk out of the area before it takes the photo. When using a camera, it is much easier just to use a tripod and set the camera on a timer so you have time to get out of the way. Now, when editing, you can remove the phone or camera much more easily without having to worry about removing your entire body as well. If nothing else works, you can also shoot from a lower vantage point to avoid some bathroom mirrors as well as some other wall-mounted mirrors.

Recommended Shot List:

The best way to make sure you get enough photos for your listing without taking too many is by referencing a shot list. Feel free to use this shot list and modify it to whatever you'd prefer. Obviously, this shot list is meant to be a guide, not the law, and while most properties will fit into this shot list, some properties may need more photos than are outlined here.

The Short Version:

Front Exterior: 3 Photos (1 Right, 1 Left, and 1 Middle)

Kitchen: 4-5 Photos (1 from each corner, unless one of the corners doesn't look good to shoot from, and 1 straight on)

Living Room: 3 Photos (1 from the most open corner, one from the opposite corner, and 1 straight on)

Dining Room: 2 Photos (1 corner and 1 straight on)

Primary Bedroom: 3 Photos (1 from the most open corner, one from the opposite corner, and 1 straight on)

Primary Bathroom: 2 Photos (1 showing as much of the bathroom as you can and 1 showing the best detail)

Additional Bathrooms: 1 Photo (showing as much of the bathroom as you can, usually from the doorway)

Additional Rooms: 2-3 Photos (1 from the most open corner, one from the opposite corner, and sometimes 1 straight on if needed)

Back Exterior: 4+ Photos (1 Right, 1 Left, 1 Middle, 1 Showing the whole backyard facing away from the house, and as many photos of features in the backyard as needed [pool, fountain, sports courts, etc.])

The Detailed Version: