Tilt-a-Whirl

Another tilty photo. I guess when the kitchen looks that bad, taking a minute to straighten the photo isn't really a priority.

Badly Exposed Crapapalooza

... and it's tilty, too.

Don't wanna give too much away

Another example of a corner shot that provides a small glimpse of part of the room, leaving the viewer with no clue what the room looks like.

Tilt!

The home is listed for $1.5 million, but they hired a photographer that took tilty photos. Or maybe they decided to skip the expense and take the photos themselves.

Same home below. A huge chunk of the home's value is attributable to its million-dollar view, but the photographer fails to capture the view. Instead, it looks like there's a nuclear blast outside.

HDR: Horrible Dynamic Range

No wonder HDR gets such a bad rap.

Tilty and Pointless

This one's a twofer: Tilty shot that is at the same time, completely pointless. This view will not sell the home.

Flasher

Nuff said.

They Recycle

Trash Cans

It takes 2 minutes to move the trash cans out of the frame for your primary photo -- the "money shot" -- is that too much to ask?

Bad Angles

Today I ran across a listing whose major transgression was a series a ill-conceived shots that had no focal point and did little to market the house.

This is probably part of a family room, and it looks like maybe it abuts the kitchen. This is the first of two fireplace fragment photos in this listing.



Since the fireplace is the focal point of most rooms, you expect it to be the focal point of most real estate listing photos. Not in this blurry photo. You have absolutely no sense of what the room is like, and the photo has no focal point.



I assume from the height of the chandelier, that this is a dining room. But where's the room?


Tilty photo of the day:


And bad hallway shot of the day:

This is not a particularly horrible photograph, but unless a hallway is particularly grand, a photo of it will do nothing to sell the house.

Listing photos are not appraisal photos. You're not taking listing photos to document the house, you're taking them to market the house.

Hope You Like Paneling!

This one falls in the EWWW! category:

$5 Mil House with Dime-a-Dozen Photos

If I were an agent marketing a property listed at just under 5 million, I'd spend a few hundred dollars on a professional photographer. Instead, the agent shot the photos herself, and they look like snapshots. The seller deserves better.

The fireplace should have been shot head on, without the personal crap peering in from the right. I'd also have removed everything from the mantle, replacing with something simple... the religious imagery could rub some potential buyers the wrong way, even subliminally.




This shot does not do the house justice, and shooting in the harsh midday sun exposes high contrast shadows that detract. And you really can't see much of the house at all.

Crammed-In Furniture, Personal Crap, and Tired Drapes.

PINK!

Let's see: 

1. Open door obscures view of kitchen; 
2. Angle obscures most of the kitchen; 
3. PINK.

OK, nothin' you can do about the pink, but did it make the photog so nauseous that he couldn't even reach over to close the doors before he released the shutter?

This next one is what I call a furniture shot. The furnishings command all the attention in the photo, providing little information about the layout or size of the room. And the kids' toys should've been stashed away. And it's a crappy photo.

The Dr Seuss Tree

So this Dr Seuss tree occupies half the photo and some wrought-iron thing in the foreground provides additional distraction.

Where's the House?

Stepping inside the chain link fence and shooting with a wide angle lens, this photo could have produced a decent shot of the house:






What's going on with the photo of the street?



Handyman's delight!




Mmmm, homey:

Bring Your Powerdrill

Not a stellar photo, but in this neighborhood, drive-by listing photos can be forgiven -- they're the only way you might be able to make it out alive.

The description ends with the following: "Vacant w/supera lock box and please bring POWERDRILL TO OPEN THE FRONT DOOR."

The one won't be getting the June Cleaver Good Housekeeping Award either

And your little dog, too!

When one little white dog in the listing photo just isn't quite enough.

Jungle Love

I'll bet she calls him, "Tiger."

Where's June Cleaver when you need her?

Is it too much to ask...

that the primary photo be in focus?

What the...?

Not sure what compelling selling point this listing photo is making

There were several other mysteries from the same shoot:

Crime Scene Investigation

Is that a teenager on the bed, wrapped in a blood-soaked sheet?

Don't drink and shoot

Crap on the Left, Junk on the Right

Despite all the crap, there's at least a clear path to the door. So that potential buyers can beat a hasty retreat.

Homing Beacon

Is that a homing beacon on the end of the bed... and a barf bucket on the floor? Maybe we're at sea and that's why the floor is tilting.

Drive By Shooting

If the photog had bothered to get out of the car, she might have taken a shot of the much more appealing front entryway. But then, you'd have missed out on seeing the funky cement sculptures and the mid-summer Christmas decorations on the lattice railing upstairs.

Up up and away

I can only imagine that the lawn area around this house is so hideous, the photographer elected to fill half the frame with sky.

Crapapalooza

All that's missing is a lava lamp. And what's that the third shelf down on the left: a pine cone or a hedgehog?