Straightening Up

All real estate photographers straighten their photos so that vertical lines are in fact 90° vertical or very close to it. This isn’t difficult to do. But not all photographers straighten horizontal lines that have been distorted by a wide-angle lens.

Straightening horizontals is a bit more difficult and may not always be entirely possible. Wide-angle lens distortion is a fact of physics.

A very wide-angle lens was used to show the full width of the room and entire stairway. Verticals (i.e. walls) were corrected to 90° vertical. Then the stairs and the ceiling above the stairs were straightened to 0° horizontal.

There are no automatic, one-click solutions to fix crooked horizontals especially if only a portion of the photo needs to be corrected. Photoshop has its Adaptive Wide Angle Filter which can work miracles. Sometimes a photo can be separated into sections and each section corrected on its own using various transform tools. In the photo above, the picture was split into two sections where the dividing line was the edge of the glass wall.

 

Real Estate Photography, Large Bathrooms

It’s easier to photograph a large bathroom than a small bathroom and large bathrooms always look better.

A large bathroom can be photographed in a single shot so minimal photo magic is required. There’s usually no need to blend or stitch multiple photos together.

A photo of a large bathroom usually doesn’t require too much retouching. Vertical lines need to be straightened and then colour, brightness and contrast have to be adjusted.

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Real Estate Photography, Small Bathrooms

Photographing small bathrooms is usually a challenge. It can be difficult to get the camera into the best position and your reflection is visible in mirrors and glass doors. Plus, a wide-angle lens creates lots of distortion in a small room.

A shift lens can sometimes be used to prevent your reflection appearing in a mirror or glass door. But getting all or most of a tiny bathroom in a picture usually requires some photo magic.

This bathroom is smaller than it appears in this photo. No matter where I stood, I was always visible in the mirror.

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Balancing Act

There are three types of colour photographs: those with bad colour, those with accurate colour and those with pleasing colour.

If the skin tones in your business portrait don’t look good or if your pictures have an overall colour cast, then your photos have a bad colour balance.

Accurate colour is required when the colours in a photo must match the real-life colours. For example, clothing colours in a catalog should match the actual colours.

Pleasing colour is for pictures that have to look nice rather than be absolutely accurate. Portraits often have pleasing colour because a nice skin tone is usually preferred over accurate skin colour.
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Photo Gear Purchases 2020

The ongoing pandemic has meant that there’s been little work and few purchases. The items listed below were bought before the pandemic shut everything down.

Sirui K-40X Ball Head

My old Manfrotto ball head wasn’t as smooth as I wanted and it struggled with heavy lenses. Also, my new L-bracket (below) requires an Arca-Swiss head and there’s no easy way to convert a Manfrotto clamp to Arca-Swiss.

The Sirui K-40X was reasonably priced ($240) compared to similar ball heads. It’s smooth, solid and a joy to use.
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The Government Is Here To Help

If you’re a Canadian photographer whose business has disappeared over the past ten months because of the pandemic, be assured that the federal government is here to help.

I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

– US senator Edmund Muskie (1976) but usually attributed to Ronald Reagan (1986)

If you log into your CRA account to apply for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit or the Canada Recovery Benefit, there are a few new things. First, the government wants a short essay describing how the pandemic has ruined your business. There’s also help to plan for a new career. I guess the government assumes your current career is a lost cause because, well, you’re applying for benefits.

Career Quiz

I took all six quizzes to find out what new occupation(s) might be a good fit for me.

The results said that I’m innovative, methodical and objective. I’m also picture smart, visual, good at form perception and good at noticing shapes, shadings and lines.
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Guess The Job

Guessing a job based on its description is a game used for helping people learn English or just for fun.

Can you guess this job based on this real description:

• Repetitive and frequent standing, seeing, sitting, walking, and driving up to eight hours per day.

• Holding five pounds in one hand for five minutes.

• Repetitive hand and arm movements needed to type and write.

• Occasional bending, stooping, squatting, lifting, twisting and carrying are necessary to perform job functions.
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