Give your listing a good impression with a great front Photo!

Why is the front photograph so important?
99.9% of real estate listings begin with a photograph of the front/exterior of the property. The first photograph a prospective buyer sees is most often going to encourage them to either view or not view your property's listing. It is important that your opening photograph conveys the home/building in a way that makes it look as large as possible, shows off the unique dimensions of the home/building, captures the best features of the property's curb appeal, and of course is an eye-appealing great overall photograph.

Show the home's dimensions and shape -

Homes have many different shapes. However, there is a basic rule that will apply to photographing the majority of homes from the correct angle. This basic rule is shoot into the "corners" of a home from an angle. Unless the facade of a home is completely flat, there should always be some sort of "corner" to shoot into. By shooting into the "corners" of a home's facade, your photograph will give the home dimension that would otherwise not be seen from a straight on photograph or one taken from the opposite side of the home's front. This seems basic, but it is the first of many rules that apply to correctly photographing the exterior of a property.
Avoid the driveway -

If possible, keep the driveway, street, and curb out of the foreground of the front photograph. Blacktop and concrete in the foreground of your photograph will often give your picture a cold unappealing look. Make sure to change your point of view to prevent the cold foreground. Having a wide angle lens makes it easier to keep the street out of your photograph while capturing the entire exterior of a property.
Elevate -

In most cases, simply elevating your point of view will make an exterior photograph much better. This can be done by standing on a six or eight foot ladder...or standing on your car if you have to. Taking an elevated photograph will make the front yard look larger and will help to further enhance the dimensions of the home.

Show the right amount of sky -
An exterior photograph should show the "right" amount of sky. Too much sky can make a home look small. More importantly, showing too much sky can make a homes yard look very small. A simple rule to follow is do not let the sky occupy more than one-quarter or 25% of your exterior photograph. Remember, most listing photographs appear as thumbnail images when a prospective buyer is sifting through properties whether it be online or in a newspaper. Your front photo should focus on the property...and not the wonders of nature. (If you have a mountain view to sell...keep reading...I will address scenery).

The correct position of the sun -
The sun's position is extremely important when capturing the exterior photograph of a home. The worst position for the sun to be in is just over the peak of a roof. If you plan on taking the photograph at this time...come back later. If the sun is positioned behind the home, your photograph will result in a dark shaded front and an overexposed background. This can be overcome with some creative post production, but it is not a desirable position for the sun to be in. The best position for the sun to be in is behind you when you are taking the photograph. In this scenario the front of the home will be properly lit by the sun, there will be minimal shadows on the front of the home, and your background will be properly exposed resulting in a beautiful photograph. (If a home does not have an East/West exposure identify the time in which the sun creates the most highlights on the front of the home and the least amount of shadows).


You do not "have to" use the "front" -
If the front of a property is unattractive...do not use it as your marquis photograph! The photo that opens your listing should be an exterior photograph in most cases because it is what buyers are expecting, but it does not always have to be the front. This rule applies more for nontraditional properties but does include the single-family home as well. Survey the property and think of the best photograph that will be used to represent your listing. If you begin to think outside of the box you may find that the best angle of a home does not have to be the front. Instances where the traditional front photograph may not be best include but are not limited to: homes with garages making up the majority of the "traditional front," properties surrounded by concrete, properties blocked by trees/other obstructions...etc.

Keep the driveway clear -
This should be obvious...but make sure the driveway is clear of cars, dumpsters, PODS...etc. If one of these objects is present, try to minimize or avoid them as much as possible

Fill the frame and use the property's surroundings -
If the homes surroundings are scenic...use them! Take photographs that best flatter the property and use all of the property's curb appeal and attractive surroundings. If the home has a large front yard, elaborate flowerbeds, or beautiful natural surroundings, find a way to include them in the marquis/opening photograph.

Properly photograph large buildings and condos -
When photographing a high-rise or multi-story building make sure to photograph the whole building.

-Do not take just a partial photo of the building.
-Do not take the front entrance as the exterior photo of the building.
-Do not take a photo of the sign outside of the building for a front photo.

None of these photographs will grab the prospective buyers attention. Additionally, these photographs will not give a prospective buyer a fair representation of the property. Also, attempt to capture a pleasing foreground in your exterior photograph of a large building just like a house. Try to prevent creating a cold foreground by avoiding parking lots, vehicles, streets, etc. Take the extra time to find a desirable location with a good perspective of the building from a distance.

Next time you are going to put photographs in your listing, remember the importance of grabbing your prospective buyer's attention with the perfect front photograph!

© All photos are the Property of Haseltine-Photo INC.
- Real estate photography and Virtual Tours by Haseltine-Photo

The Art of Night/Twilight Photography

The Art of Night/Twilight Photography

The subject of nighttime/twilight photographs and real estate photography is an interesting one. Twilight photographs have the ability to capture a viewer's eye in special ways. If done right, an effective twilight photograph should have rich color, a strong sense of texture, and the ability to convey mood. Like most topics photography related...you can only get away with it if the final product results in an impressive high-quality image. That being said, it is my nature to encourage anyone with a camera to explore it's capabilities and to discover your own talents in the process.

Here are some tips and techniques for capturing a good twilight photograph:

You do not have to be a pro, but you do need to know how to work your camera.

Twilight photographs are not intended to be taken in the automatic mode. If you are not capable of exploring the manual settings of your camera...these types of photos are not for you.

A steady shot is essential

A good tripod is a must have piece of equipment for quality nighttime photography. A good tripod does not necessarily have to be an expensive tripod. It is important that your tripod is steady and that you can lock your camera in position on the tripod.
A steady shot is essential.

Pick the proper location

Make sure that you pick a location that is not going to be hindered by bright lights aiming into your camera. A strong security light pointing into your lens or obstructing the view of your subject will surely be a distraction in your photograph. Do not forget to practice the rules of composition. Specifically, make sure to have an even horizon and to fill your frame. There are going to be an overwhelming amount of shadows in a nighttime photograph and making your subject fill the frame will keep your photograph from being boring.

Best methods for proper exposure

First make sure to use an ISO of 200 or below. A high ISO setting will result in a grainy image and a lower quality contrast throughout your photograph. For the best exposure use a high f-stop/aperture setting. F-12 to F-16 will make your brighter lights less aggressive and will also help give your photograph a sharp focus throughout. Finally, your shutter speed is the best tool for adjusting the exposure in this format. A longer exposure will let the light bleed into your photo for a more dramatic lighting. Generally an exposure of 15-30 seconds will create this effect really well. Do not forget that anything moving in your photograph will likely be blurred with a long exposure, and you should set a timer or use a remote to avoid blurring the photograph while taking the picture. Also remember to experiment with your exposures to get the photograph just right.

The proper white balance

In most cases a long exposure of this nature will cause your photograph to take on a very yellow look/white balance. It is important to correct the color of your photograph because thr color of a nighttime photograph's lighting will have a very dramatic effect. Almost every digital camera has a different set of menu options. The daylight white balance setting or tungsten setting will add blue to your image which will make the yellow lights appear clear or white.

Additional lighting

In this form of photography never use a flash. If your subject requires additional lighting, a strong directional light will be your best option to assist with the exposure.
It is not likely that you will get a perfect photograph the first time, but practice and experimentation will lead to incredible results!

Photographs are the property of Haseltine Photo INC. Photo#1 and #2 Were taken by Lester Escoto of Miami, FL. Photo#3 and #4 Were taken by Ian Haseltine.

SEO - Does Your Site Have Validity?

SEO - Does Your Site Have Validity?

Whether you have designed your own website or contracted that task out, you should check to see if your code has validity.

Validity or Validation for your site refers to the language in which it is written and if it is written correctly. Your site's code can be written in a variety of formats. Each of these formats is like a different language. When a portion of your site is written incorrectly, it is labeled as invalid.

How does this effect you and your website?

It will surely have a negative impact on your site in search engine rankings. Each piece of code that is not valid will be skipped over by the search engine bots that rank, judge, and sort websites. If the bots are skipping over your content every optimization statistic and effort will be less accurate and effective. A simple quotation mark in the wrong place or a property name being mislabeled can destroy lines of code and undo a lot of hard work.

Additionally, your site may not appear correctly in all browsers if not valid. By validating your site's code you are complying with the uniform rules of the language that your site has been written in.

How can you check to see if your site's code has validity?

This is the easy part! Go to the W3C Markup Validation Service Website: http://validator.w3.org/

Once here, type in your URL address. Your site's code will be analyzed by W3C's Validation Service, which will process a report for you. The report will point out each error in your code and give helpful suggestions to fix these issues.

Do not stop at your home page. Do each page of your website. Make sure to check your CSS as well. It is a mistake to submit your site to the search engines without taking this very important step.

I would also suggest using the "Clean up Markup with HTML Tidy" tool provided by the service while analyzing your site. This tool will clean up your code, which will make your site load faster and help the search engines crawl your site more efficiently.

Everything about this service is free! You will not even have to give an email address or subscribe to any special offers.

Once your site has been validated W3C's service will supply you with a graphic and link to their site, which if you choose to display it, shows everyone that your site has been validated.

I have one at the bottom of my site http://www.haseltine-photo.com/!

It is time to dive into Social Networking and Blogging!

I do not have any quality excuses for staying out of the world of social networking for so long. It is not entirely true that I haven’t dabbled, but for the most part I have been a cautious spectator. However, I have recently made the decision to dive in headfirst. My intentions are very clear to me now, but it took be quite some time to find out what they might be. I reached the conclusion that I must get involved in the world of social networking and blogging by asking myself one valuable question over and over again, which was, "Why would I blog?"


A few years ago I would have simply answered that question, "I don’t know, who wants to hear what I have to say?"


My recent epiphany has been the realization that anyone who has an interest in the topics that I have a wealth of knowledge in or may share a similar or differing opinion on will find my musings to be of interest.


The intentions of my blog are simple. I would like to share my knowledge of the real estate industry in regards to:


-Effective Marketing
-Search Engine Optimization
-Web-design
-Professional Photography Techniques
-Photoshop Tricks, Tips, and Skills
-Multimedia Tools for Real Estate Professionals
-The Value of Good Customer Service


Alternatively, I would like to use my blog as a tool to learn. If there is one thing I have grasped over the time that I have been a "cautious spectator," it is that there are plenty of fellow bloggers and comment droppers out there with quality opinions. I am hoping that the topics that I choose to bring to this forum spark discussion and constructive debate that will help us all to improve our professional lives.


I will be publishing my blog bi-weekly and I hope that most people will find that it is a very helpful tool and that the information I have to share is both relevant and important to those who read it.


One of the greatest challenges for me has been trying to find a way to blog without being a pesky commercial. With that in mind, I won’t plug my product/service in anyway while I am trying to introduce myself to this community. Instead, I will sneak a link in here and encourage any curious readers to please review my profile if they are interested in finding out about me before I put my thoughts, opinions, and industry knowledge all over the web in my many blogs to come.




I do not want to leave anyone who has read through this without at least a little of the valuable information that I have been promising, so I will give a short suggestion related to "The Value of Good Customer Service."


It costs a great amount to seek out and win over new customers in comparison to what it will cost to retain a current client. Some places will claim that it costs over five times as much to gain new clients versus the cost of client retention. Remember to address your client’s concerns. Following up is the most important step a business can take in order to retain a client. As a business owner, I can attest to the fact that you will never hear from over 95% of satisfied clients. However, you will correspond with almost every single unhappy client you have. A quick and proper resolution to a client’s displeasure will likely build a stronger relationship between your organization and the once dissatisfied consumer. Moreover, the development of such relationships can result in referrals, which will in-turn save any business from having to spend more to seek out that new client. Remember, that every displeased customer your organization allows to remain unhappy will have a negative impact on your business.

Haseltine-Photo - Virtual Tour Provider Website Updates.

Haseltine-Photo provides Virtual Tours, professional photography, and interactive marketing solutions to real estate agents. We have recently updated our website
http://www.haseltine-photo.com/ in an effort to provide more content and a better understanding of the tools and services that we provide.

A Haseltine-Photo Virtual Tour is a full 360 degrees. Each tour has the ability to see from floor to ceiling and in all directions, just as if you were in the room.

Our new site includes many examples of our Virtual Tours. Our unique Virtual Tours have the ability to be viewed in a full screen mode for even greater detail. Also, Haseltine-Photo provides professional still photographs with each Virtual Tour that can be viewed in our players at full screen as well.

I will be blogging more about our new tools in the near future. We also offer some of the industries best real estate video that will be added to http://www.haseltine-photo.com/ very soon.

Please check back to our blog soon for further information.

Content! Content! Content!

The age old real estate absolute to property value and ability to sell has always been location, location, location. This will never change; but for the real estate agent, "location location location" is beginning to describe your website and whether or not it can be found. Search engine optimization, meta tags, keywords...all can have an overwhelming sensation when the success of your business as an agent is determined by these terms. All in all, real estate agents need traffic to be driven to their websites just as much as a good location on the major cross-streets for an open house sign. However, we all know that the open house does not begin and end with a sign.

The most important part of an open house is foot-traffic. The more people that show up and walk through the home on a guided tour will result in a larger number of potential buyers. Ultimately, the goal being to find that one buyer. These same ideas and processes apply to the web.

Now, back to our website. If an agent gets a potential buyer to their site from a search engine, billboard, or flyer. How will they get the buyer to view or "walk through" their website?

The answer is content, content, content! Buyers want to know as much as possible upfront. The real estate industry is finally reacting to this demand. First, all listings need DETAILED descriptions. The old 3 line newspaper will not satisfy any of today's buyers nearly as much as it used to. Most competitive websites can provide 2 large paragraphs per listing. All listings should attempt to compete with this. Second, community information needs to be included in a listing and its description. Write about the schools, parks, businesses, shopping, and anything else the area may offer. Finally, add the interactive tools that need to be added to all internet listings. This is necessary because it keeps a potential buyer on a listing. They will wait through the load time and they will flip through the photos and tours. If the listing does not provide these tools, the agent risks having buyers skip their listings to get to the ones with these tools. Also, buyers will remember the homes they spent time to see rather than the home that had two photos and a short description only outlining the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Overall, an agent's or business's website will be traveled to for its content. Once the buyers arrive they will stay and hopefully buy.