What tips do you have to prep the home interior for a shoot?

Here are several practices we recommend. We will also help with tasks like opening blinds and making small adjustments. We prefer not to touch your personal effects, however, and we don’t move large furniture. If you’d like to learn more after reading below, check out our preparation checklist.

• Ensure the home is neat and clear out as much clutter as possible. Common practice is to put as much as you can into closets, garages, and basements as those often aren’t shot anyways.

• Remove most items from the kitchen counters. A select decorative canister or platter can be left out, but remember the room is our photo subject — not the decor. Remove everything from the exterior of the fridge and hide trash cans.

• Remove toiletries from the bathroom counter and shower area. Close all toilet lids.

• Tidy workstations, dressers, entertainment centers, etc. This is true with cords too. Also, make all beds neatly.

• Open curtains and blinds. For blinds and shutters, we typically prefer them to hang down all the way with the slats horizontal. Not only does this provide a neat look, it helps bring natural light into the room. Exceptions are broken blinds or sagging shutters. In those cases, we look for a combination of room consistency and allowing as much light in as possible.

• Replace any burnt out bulbs, and keep lighting consistent (if you have a 5-bulb chandelier, make sure they are the same color tone).

• Turn off fans. The moving blades create an unwanted blur effect.

• Remove any pet items from view. This includes food bowls, dog beds, cat towers, etc. Even if your next buyer is a pet lover, it’s better to remove these items out of view and thus out of mind.

• Please flag if you have any personal pictures or name decor on the wall that you would like blurred out.

What tips do you have to prep the home exterior for a shoot?

The exterior of the home matters not only for the outside shots but the inside ones too! That’s because your yard and nearby area will be visible through the windows in our photos. Here are our recommendations for preparation:

• Remove all cars from the driveway. You can street park away from your house (so your car doesn’t show in the windows) or in a garage (if not being shot).

• Hide trash and recycling bins. If you have nowhere to hide them, place on the side of the house if able. We will also be able to move these if they’re in our frame assuming they’re not overflowing.

• Sweep or leaf blow the driveway, porch, and patio. This is especially important in the fall.

• Mow the lawn, hedge your bushes, and remove weeds.

• Remove any hoses, sprinklers, outdoor toys.

What things can you remove from a photo or video in editing?

Though it’s best to avoid ‘photoshopping’ as much as possible for the sake of photo quality, we certainly can make quite a handful of accommodations in the event something was missed during prep or is too difficult to remove. Examples include adding in a missing ceiling light, blurring out personal wall photos, and adding in green grass into a one-off brown patch. We also inherently edit in blue skies into our photos. However, we might not be able to accommodate all requests so as to avoid misrepresenting the home in MLS. Additionally, we cannot ‘photoshop’ video recordings. Another reason why it’s better to get the home in its best shape prior to the shoot time!

Do I need to be onsite while you shoot?

We can shoot whether you or the homeowners are onsite or out having fun. We’ve shot everything from fully vacant to fully lived. What’s important is that we have access to the home and can efficiently move from room to room. And even though we love pets, it’s best to have them in the garage or at another location. Otherwise, they follow us around and love getting into frame, which prolongs shoot times.

Can other contractors or vendors be onsite while you shoot?

We prefer to be the sole vendors onsite while shooting, though we have worked around other contractors in a pinch. It is of no fault of the other contractors, but our jobs are often competing for the same space and it’s more efficient for each of us to operate at different time slots. For example, a handyman won’t want to park far down the street and carry his tools in! Additionally, we may need to do multiple attempts of one-shot walk-through videos if we’re seeing contractors or their vehicles through the windows.