Time to Pick Up
It has been a slow week, probably my slowest outside of the festive period on the last few years. The bite of AI really has hit me harder than I was expecting, which is annoying me as the results from the system are terrible! My Dad’s house was photographed using the same set up a couple of years back, possibly in an earlier itteration, and it was so bad the house just wouldn’t sell - I reshot it and it sold a week later. Looking at the images (no, I won’t call them photographs) that are being produced by the interloper into my world they are over bright, over clinical and look fake in an antiseptic way - like a cut price advert for a clinical service. There is no warmth, atmosphere or humanity about them… and I think that is so very wrong with something as personal as a house purchase. There is no emotional response to this type of imagary.
So… I have to admit… I have spent most of the last week or two licking my wounds. But spring is in the air and there are new opportunities to explore. I had been saying to those nearest to me that I had to expand my horizons beyond where it currently lies, and I need to move my market up the ladder too where a more emotional connection becomes even more key, so that is what I am doing, and hopefully there are a few things in motion that will see the situation starting to turn around again very, very soon.
I think the biggest opportunity for growth is to really explore the video market more. I have been looking at some of the output in that sphere and, whilst competent enough, it doesn’t really have much sparkle… it hasn’t got any real artistry to the content. This is true in the stills market too when you look at, particularly, the agency shooters who are technically skilled enough but often lack in the aesthetics. I think I fall more into the artist camp, which is why I am also persuing fine art photography, and want to bring some of that vision into the world of film and video. I know my stills work is good, now it’s time to stretch myself and move onwards and upwards!
This week, then, there have been two jobs on, plus a revisit as I wasn’t happy with one of the rooms. I am always happy to revisit, re-edit or generally tweak something that isn’t right on request… but if I am not happy with the content I have created then I will proactively seek to reshoot or rectify the problem (sometimes even if the client is happy with it). I don’t want to put my name to something which I believe is sub-standard! This seems to be a remarkably rare trait looking at some of the images which have been provided to some very high end Estate Agents I have come across whilst researching the market, and this makes me rather sad - both from a professional standards viewpoint, but also as I feel that this is short changing the owners of these often high value properties.
So here are some of this weeks images, and I am going to start sharing some of the video work too that I shoot each week.
This is a short introductory video for sharing on social media using a DJI Mavic 3.
This is a slightly more experimental offering as I utilised both the DJI Mavic 3 along with the DJI Avata 2 which can be flown inside the property. The controlled I used for this particular video was very much the wrong tool for the job - I have now upgraded both the controller and the goggles which will give me the kind of control I need to achieve some spectacular fly throughs!
This is one of my more typical indoors/outdoors videos utilising the Mavic 3 for aerial work before switching to an Osmo Pocket 3 for interior work. This is a trade off between quality and convinience - the little Pocket 3 is something of a powerhouse, but being so compact it does have limited scope for wide shots. It is so portable though that I tend to carry it at all times, unlike the Ronin which I can mount a full size mirrorless camera to!
I am hoping to bring you some of those kind of results soon as this will be key to bringing in some really high quality, cinematic, shots.
And now the stills!
