10 Great Practical Tips – How To Get Work As A Real Estate Photographer

Continuing my series of posts about being a real estate photographer, this is a pretty important area.

To get work as a real estate photographer you need to

Create a brand that specialises in real estate photography

Market yourself directly to potential clients
Phone people – the old ways still work
Create a website that shouts out – I am a great real estate photographer

Have a great portfolio
Find your place in the market
Get your pricing right

Get your photography sorted
Provide a great service
Be nice to people

This post is not about taking photos, no this post is about marketing and getting work. And this is good, practical actionable advice that I am giving you.

Who am I?

I am Rick McEvoy, a professionally qualified photographer specialising in photographing real estate, architecture, and construction. I am based in the UK but my advice applies pretty much anywhere, with of course local tweaks.

Right – let’s get straight into this post.

1 Create a brand that specialises in real estate photography

This is the main thing that you need to do. Create a brand which is going to be you, the service provider and human, and your real estate photography. You are the person that people will work with, talk to, negotiate with.

You are your brand, and your brand needs to be all about real estate photography.

Sure you can go broader, check out the ideas in the last post, but stick within the boundaries I wrote about.

Everything about you should say that you are a real estate photographer, anytime anybody finds you that should be the over riding impression of what you do.

This is what I do.

I once had an enquiry from an artist who wanted some paintings photographed. Not my thing really but I went and saw them and had a very interesting chat. The very charming couple told me that when they found my website it shouted out – I do not do weddings. That is what they said. Mission accomplished.

And here is a top tip.

Everyone who approaches me with any kind of question or enquiry has some very important information about me. And it is this

Why did they approach me?
How did they find me?

You might get enquiries that just don’t work out but always ask these two questions and you will get some very useful information

2 Market yourself directly to potential clients

The beauty of real estate photography is that you know who your potential clients are, which is one reason why real estate photography is such a great business opportunity for a photographer.

You can pick and choose who you approach based on their listings and where you want to position yourself.

But get yourself in front of clients so they know who you are, and I am not talking here about just having a website and waiting for people to find you. Oh no.

3 Phone people – the old ways still work

Pick up the phone, call agents, ask if they need any help with photography. Ask who is responsible for booking photographers and ask to speak to them. They will probably say no, as they will probably already have a photographer.

But what you can do is ask them how you might work for them, what rates they pay, and are there any opportunities in the future.

You will get lots of information this way, and will have introduced yourself to a potential new client.

And ask for their email address, and follow up your conversation with a short, professional email thanking them for their time and closing by saying that you hope you will be able to help them in the future.

This is much more effective than sending out emails, and is not anywhere near as daunting as you think it might be.

What is the worst thing that can happen? That they say no.

4 Create a website that shouts out – I am a great real estate photographer

I told you about the enquiry from the painter. What I have done to my website is get rid of a load of irrelevant stuff, making my website very much all about photos of buildings. Sure there is some travel stuff there, but this is mainly building related too.

I have struggled myself with how to include my travel stuff in my website, as I do not have anywhere else for it.

And I added my Photography Explained Podcast to my website, which diluted the message so much that I created a brand new, separate website and put all the podcast related stuff there.

My website is now very much focussed on real estate, architectural and construction photography. The difference now is that I am targeting clients for me to work for and photographers to advise, but in these specific fields only.

Getting found

Since I have changed the content and emphasis of my website the search results for the keywords and phrases I want to be found for have improved massively.

Getting found for the right thing

If you were going to book a wedding photographer where would you look? How would you find someone? Well your first port of call these days would probably be a Google search, and you might put into Google “wedding photographer in INSERT YOUR LOCATION HERE”.

And what will you get? A list of wedding photographers.

Would you book a wedding photographer to photograph a house? Or would you put into Google “real estate photographer in INSERT YOUR LOCATION HERE”?

That is what you need to be found for, amongst other things. This on top of going direct to clients will help you get some work.

5 Have a great portfolio

I will cover this in a future post, but having a great portfolio is vital – you have to prove that you have done this stuff before, and to a standard that agents will be more than happy with.

I am not talking hundreds of photos here – my online portfolios are 12 photos each.

Here they are

Architectural Photography Portfolio

Landscape Photography Portfolio

Travel Photography Portfolio

Like I said, I will create a brand new Real Estate Photography Portfolio and write about the entire process in a future post.

6 Find your place in the market

Do you want to photograph high end stuff, or just “normal” houses? I suggest starting small and building up to bigger stuff, as whilst it is harder to photograph higher end properties there is an amount of repetition involved that helps take the edge off the added pressure.

The more valuable the property the more you can, in theory, charge.

Talking of what to be found for, my dream search result is to be number one for “real estate photographer in Sandbanks”. And by typing this into this blog post I have just started that process.

7 Get your pricing right

Ask how much agents pay. They will tell you. And that is pricing done. You have to decide how much you are prepared to work for, bearing in mind the total amount of time required to agree a brief, get there, take the photos, get home again, process the photos, issue them, submit the invoice, and market yourself. You also have to prep your gear and yourself – it all takes time.

This all needs to be factored into your pricing – being a commercial photographer is not just taking photos. Oh no there is much more to it than that.

8 Get your photography sorted

I am talking here about taking and processing photos, having the right gear, the right techniques, data management, backups – all that good stuff.

You have to be on top of all of that, this is an absolute must. And your workflows have to be slick, polished, efficient, effective, and repeatable.

If you are charging people money to take photos for them you have to be on top of all of this. Check out the other posts in this series where I go into this side of things in a lot of detail.

9 Provide a great service

Quite simply provide a great service. Help your clients, make things easy for them, solve their problems.

Do this and they will want to work with you again. And word gets around.

If you do not do this then agents will not want to work with you again, and your business will very quickly become nothing.

You need to work on providing a great service at every stage. Now this might sound wrong, controversial even, but this is true.

Anyone can in theory take great photos of a building.
Not everyone can provide a great service every time.

Which will make you stand out? Well the photos are a level playing field, service is the difference. That is where you need to spend time, on giving a great service.

This is assuming of course that you are taking photos to a professional standard.

10 Be nice to people

I mean anyone and everyone. Be the nice guy/ gal. Smile, always be polite, courteous, smile, be warm and friendly. Add this to providing a great service and people will enjoy working with you.

This is a fact.

And your brand is you after all, so what perception do you want people to have of you?

You might be the best photographer on the planet but if you are miserable people will not want to work with you.

Photography Explained Podcast

Yes I have my own podcast, the Photography Explained Podcast, which is very good, even if I do say so myself! Photography things explained in less than 10 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details.

OK – I am done.

I hope that this has been helpful, and that you now know what you need to do to get work as a real estate photographer.

Smile, be nice and ask people and you never know what will happen? And let’s not forget, what is he worst thing that could happen?

That someone says no. Which is not that bad is it really?

Rick McEvoy Photography