Sending Picasa albums to potential punters.

[Giddy Goat]

Bottom left of José's website: it reads 'designed by Subtense'.

[firstgreen]

Mountain Goat

Great photos. As we know great photos can be the booking decider and yours certainly stand out and sell your views.

jimbo

I think it shows too. Sometimes only a pro will do. At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, having a pro-snapper taking your publicity pix can be an excellent investment.

Do you have any ideas of what a pro will charge per day?

Phil

[Mountain Goat]

Phil,

Jimbo's the guy to ask, but, of course, Portugal could be different.

One piece of advice from Jimbo that I didn't take on board soon enough was realising that the snapper was working for us, and rather than giving him free reign to do his own thing, which we did, it's important to direct the shoot (I'm learning the jargon).

Not so much exterior work, but the interior, where one or two pics are very dire indeed (row of tacky clothes hangers in pristine bedroom, drooping flowers in living room vase, forgetting to light up the wood-burning stove etc.). Simple little things like that can stand out a mile.

And maybe not so important where you are, but if you're importing someone non-local, weather conditions can hold things up badly.

One last thing, if you've got an impressive view through a window, is he capable of massaging the shot (i.e. take a bunch of shots, with inside and outside exposures/focus, and then overlap the two images).

We had a guest last week, with some very exotic Canon hardware, and I have to admit the stitching of his panoramas was impeccable (Canon software), though not quite sure what to do with the results.

MG

[Jimbo]

Do you have any ideas of what a pro will charge per day?

Phil, I don't know about Portugal but in UK/France, you'd need to be spending at least 750 Euros + expenses for a day's photogaphy to ensure that you're not hiring somebody who might still be learning at your expense. Pros at the top of their game will charge a lot more.

Gasp, I hear members' squeaking. How much - gissus the camera! But, remember that you're hiring professional expertise (both at the taking and post-production stages) and a range of expensive equipment. If you organise and time your shoot carefully, you should end up with a high-quality set of publicity pictures that will display your property to its best advantage, won't date quickly and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. A couple of the extra bookings generated by the new pictures will more than pay the cost.

If you really can't afford a pro, you might consider contacting your nearest art college/photo school and offer the assignment to a student (preferably supervised by the year tutor). This may prove a bit of a curate's egg because the student will still be learning but - equally - might produce some interesting stuff at a fraction of the pro cost.

Jim

[Hells Bells]

I have been trying to get my Art student son to do just this, but that's the problem with kids. . I do know a pro photographer, but he's more into action shots of skiing than apartments.

[Martha]

MG, what a brilliant idea. It really shows the place off beautifully!! I've been dithering for a while about the best way to do this, and it's a really good solution.

[firstgreen]

Thanks for the advice guys. I will refer to this thread when I choose a photographer.

Mg

We had a guest last week, with some very exotic Canon hardware, and I have to admit the stitching of his panoramas was impeccable (Canon software), though not quite sure what to do with the results.

Now that is a solution. Maybe I should change my advertisements to “photographers stay free�

Jim

If you organise and time your shoot carefully, you should end up with a high-quality set of publicity pictures that will display your property to its best advantage, won't date quickly and can be used for a wide variety of purposes. A couple of the extra bookings generated by the new pictures will more than pay the cost.

Exactly, they should pay for themselves.

I’m finally coming around to this way of thinking. Instead of spending my holiday trying to take the perfect photo (which I have no expertise in doing) its time to spend that quality time with the family and let the experts take over.

I recently came across this quote;

“Trying to do everything may be just shooting yourself in the foot. What's the use of saving £1,000 if it took £3,000 worth of your time to do so? And what is the use of saving that £1,000 if you make only a few thousand profit from your work - when a specialist maybe could have made you £10,000.�

Sorry for the thread creep btw.

Phil

[Jimbo]

Mountain Goat wrote:

How about tempting a local professional with doing a website in exchange for his/her work? It's still under construction, and I'm trying to extract what he wants on the site, but it's a start.

Hi MG

Err ... I think it's a clever idea to trade a website against photo work but how open ended is your committment? If Jose ends up with dozens of lucrative assignments as a result, what will MG get in return for all his hard work? Hope you've discussed charging him a % on each assignment generated after he's recovered the money from your shoot?

I'm impressed by the range of pictures on Jose's site - interesting what's available to photograph in a relatively small geographical area (albeit an interesting one). If the site is simply to showcase Jose's work to engender further commissions, it's fine but if you/he are intending to sell pictures as well, I'd be tempted to add some detailed captions. Sometimes, the story behind the pictures makes them much more marketable.

Does the site allow for keywording to help picture researchers find what they need in a hurry? How will they obtain pix in a hurry if Jose's stuck up a mountain for days on end?

Jim

[Ben McNevis]

We did it once - I mean trading a reduction in rental for some professional pictures.

I can't remember now how we came to know that this guest was a photographer. Presumably she told us as we're not in the habit of asking guests what they do for a living!

Now I think about it, the only reason she could have had for telling us is that she was hoping to do a trade, so maybe photographers expect this kind of thing. The resulting pictures were not brilliant, mainly because of the weather (Scotland) but the interior ones were better than our own attempts so it proved worthwhile.

[Topcat]

Bit late as usual, but MG what BREATHTAKING photos. And what a good idea to use Picasa like that -I'll have to give it a try.

TC

[Jimbo]

... she was hoping to do a trade, so maybe photographers expect this kind of thing ...

Not this one. Tell people that you're snapper and, in a flash, they'll produce a camera and demand that you tell them how the xxx function or yyy mode works. As if I'd know.

When people ask what I do, I usually mumble until they change the subject. They probably think I'm retarded.

Jim

[Mountain Goat]

Jim, re José's site, it's not going to be a serious money-earner. If he gets a commission or two, then good luck to him, and I'll ask him to retake the pics I don't like on our place or change the season as a quid pro quo.

I feel it would be a lot of work to tart the images up for selling individually, and fiddly to handle. He's not into the 'net, and we don't even live in the same country. Bit of a non-starter.

Maybe I ought to optimise his site for property commissions like ours? You only have to drag through any of the listing sites to see how everyone with a digital cam. thinks they can do it themselves.*

MG

*Including me. NB Mrs MG, who's starting to think of Christmas and so far oblivious to the house being knee-deep in camera mags...

[Jimbo]

Pity MG, otherwise you might have been able to retire early and let Jose take the strain! The slideshow is a clever idea and the site you made for Jose is very attractive. Textbook example, I think, of how a set of good photos will generate new uses for themselves. I doubt you'd have bothered to be so creative if the pix had been mediocre.

Good photographs have hundreds of uses. A great picture writes its own script.

Jim

[mario]

MG-Just done mine thanks but how did you do that wide angle view can picasa google do it?.

[Mountain Goat]

Mario

I've found Picasa/Google usually trims them down automatically, although it can take a long time uploading. This panorama (Canon Stitch of 3 images) started off at 12Mbs and Google beat it down to 28k. The biggest downside is the time that Picasa/Google takes to load, which might be useless on dialup.

If there's a problem then perhaps tweak the image to the size you want and reduce the definition?

MG