Property Photography Portfolio
Include Only Your Best Work In Any Portfolio
Property Photography Portfolio: Introduction
By now, you should have a fair idea of what is expected and how to go about photographing a property. What you now need to do is get yourself known and start working.
First of all, you must a have a decent portfolio of images to show prospective clients and these must include property shots. It is a kind of chicken and egg situation but is easily rectified.
As discussed before, you can approach friends or family and ask to photograph their properties inside and out. As payment to them, offer to give a CD with all the images on for free as thanks for them allowing you to start your portfolio.
If this is not possible, ask a neighbour or current work colleague and offer the same terms. Free pictures. Maybe even do a commercial property or two (shop or warehouse) to add diversity to your talents.
Get 'em printed!
Once you have one or two properties under your belt, process them to the hilt to get them looking their absolute best. Print them at A4 or A3 (10×8 or 18×12) and add them to your property photography portfolio.
Unless you have a decent printer, I would suggest sending them to a pro lab like:
...to have them done professionally. Image is everything in photography.
Before sending to a lab, make sure they are immaculate;
Note: Resize is an incredible program that you can use as a plug in for Photoshop, Lightroom or as a standalone. It allows you to upsize and increase the pixel count in your images up to 1000% for huge prints. I normally keep to under 200% and the results are great and very professional. A totally recommended tool for ALL photographers.
When you receive the prints, first of all, stand back in awe at the quality of your prints and outstanding training ; )
Next, you need to keep your property photography portfolio safe from sunlight and constant handling. I suggest an A3 professional artist's portfolio holder. It will hold both A4 and A3 images.
In the UK? Check out this company for reference;
Not only will it keep your images safe and well protected, but it also looks professional. Especially when you arrive at a meeting with potential clients.
Just for good measure, do the same with some of your finest wedding, portrait, landscape and commercial images if you have any. It won't hurt to include them. It also shows people that you have more than one string to your bow! Could well lead to more work too.
Build a website
As well as a "hard copy", get yourself an online presence too. If you don't have a website already, learn how to build one here:
Host online for free
Or use a free hosting service such as www.photo.net, www.photobucket.com where you can showcase your work for free! There are literally hundreds of these hosting sites so have a surf online, and see which one suits you best. Some look very professional indeed.
Lastly, I recommend that you downsize your entire portfolio to around 20-50KB each, to be able to quickly email it to prospective clients. The better prepared you are, the more professional you look. Speed is of the essence in photography nowadays, you can rest assured people will have asked for a few quotes and/or portfolios. If yours arrives quickly, you are off to a good start.
With more and more people buying Digital SLR's, it is important to showcase only your best work, and prove that not just anyone can do it, regardless of how good their camera is.
If you want to get technical with your property photography portfolio, why not use an iPad Pro to show off your work to potential clients. Portable, classy, impressive with amazing screen resolution!