Rights on property photos

Check the advertising agreement you entered into. If you paid for the advertising package seperately (which includes a full fee for the photography), the photos are yours and you can ask for the originals (un-watermarked).

I terminated a sales agreement but asked for (and got) the photos because I paid for them already.

Sold a house via agent at auction in December.

Professionally done shots were shopped to the shithouse. Lawns greened and smoothed, cracks and marks removed from walls and other surfaces, fires added to fire-places. Online, it looked like a super-shiny version of the federation original.

Considering the ethical reputation of the real estate industry, I assume the practice is standard.

gazket said :

Take your own photo’s it’s not that hard.

Very true. With modern digital technology, computer designed optics, accurate autofocus and autoexposure algorithms, it’s not hard at all to take photos. Any smartphone or cheap point and shoot camera will do it. A $1,000 digital SLR kit will do it better.

If you’re talking about good photos, that’s a different story. For the sake of the reply, I will assume you are not an experienced photographer. I am, but not in real estate.

Good real estate photos take specialist skills and equipment. You would need a good quality camera – probably a Digital SLR though some of the better mirrorless cameras would do nicely. You would want a fast (as in, large maximum aperture) ultra wide angle lens (the kit zoom that comes with the camera would do a mediocre job at best) and they are expensive. As mentioned, a tripod and a lighting set-up with a couple of off-camera flashes and probably softboxes or reflectors (and the associated wireless triggers and stands). Rather than $1,000 you should be budgeting more like $4,000 for this gear.

Then you would need the skills to cope with the very difficult mixed-source lighting, some very low light levels and wide dynamic range – don’t underestimate how difficult it would be to get the quality of professional real estate photos. High level post processing skills (and associated software with a large learning curve) will help. On top of this you will need a good sense of the kind of composition that works well in this specialist field.

If your property is unique and desirable enough that it will sell well regardless of what the photos are like and regardless of what else is on the market, then it may be worth doing it yourself. But if you are trying to compete with other properties that are at all similar or equally desirable, then IMHO it is worth investing in a professional. Your property is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. A good set of photos might end up getting you a quicker sale and maybe even quite a few thousand more on the sale price – that seems worth it to me.

gazket said :

Take your own photo’s it’s not that hard.

Would you say it’s easier, or harder than correctly using apostrophes?

gazket said :

Take your own photo’s it’s not that hard.

Cut your own hair. It’s not that hard.

Take your own photo’s it’s not that hard.

astrojax said :

Mysteryman said :

Grrrr said :

Mysteryman said :

I believe Australian copyright law determines that a photographer doesn’t own photos commissioned by a client for a “private” purpose – such as weddings or birthdays – unless agreed upon otherwise.

Would be interested in you pointing out which law that is.

Also, I suggest people with some technical nouse and creativity spend $1k on a cheap DSLR body, / flash / a decent wide lens, and take their own photos. You’ll spend a bit more than hiring a photographer for a couple of hours, but still have a nice camera on the shelf afterwards!

You won’t get a decent wide angle and camera for $1k. You also won’t get good architectural photos without a tripod. And without skill and experience you won’t get good photos.

I recommend people spend the money on a good photographer. The difference it can make to the sale price of a house far exceeds the initial cost.

+>1, up to ‘many’

amazed at how many people take good photography for granted, assuming they could do it themselves with ‘the right equipment’. yes, let’s see how many could lap bathurst near track record times even if given the wheel of a lowndes car; or… well, i’m sure you have your own examples.

if you want a professional job of any sort done, here’s an idea – use a professional…

I just wish they wouldn’t put the HDR settings to maximum, which makes it look like a clown vomited.

Mysteryman said :

Grrrr said :

Mysteryman said :

I believe Australian copyright law determines that a photographer doesn’t own photos commissioned by a client for a “private” purpose – such as weddings or birthdays – unless agreed upon otherwise.

Would be interested in you pointing out which law that is.

Also, I suggest people with some technical nouse and creativity spend $1k on a cheap DSLR body, / flash / a decent wide lens, and take their own photos. You’ll spend a bit more than hiring a photographer for a couple of hours, but still have a nice camera on the shelf afterwards!

You won’t get a decent wide angle and camera for $1k. You also won’t get good architectural photos without a tripod. And without skill and experience you won’t get good photos.

I recommend people spend the money on a good photographer. The difference it can make to the sale price of a house far exceeds the initial cost.

+>1, up to ‘many’

amazed at how many people take good photography for granted, assuming they could do it themselves with ‘the right equipment’. yes, let’s see how many could lap bathurst near track record times even if given the wheel of a lowndes car; or… well, i’m sure you have your own examples.

if you want a professional job of any sort done, here’s an idea – use a professional…

I love photography questions, everyone gets in on them!
Some good advice here, I was a bit rusty on copyright, but unless you signed some agreement to the contrary either the agent or the photographer owns the copyright, depending on the agreement between those two people.
Having said that, if the question is about whether they can now use them for whatever they want, I don’t think it’s reasonable that they should, especially the interiors (even if it’s legal). I know that Allhomes will be happy to remove previous photos of your house if you ask them nicely.
Also having said that, if all you want is some photos to keep for yourself, it would be a pretty tighta$$ agent to not let you. Of course if you want them to give to another agent to sell your house instead then I wouldn’t blame them for firing up.
The only bad advice is to buy a camera and take them yourself. You can clearly see the difference on Allhomes between a specialist house photographer and the people/agents that take them themselves. Look especially at the for rent photos where they often save a few bucks – the photos are crap.

Grrrr said :

Mysteryman said :

I believe Australian copyright law determines that a photographer doesn’t own photos commissioned by a client for a “private” purpose – such as weddings or birthdays – unless agreed upon otherwise.

Would be interested in you pointing out which law that is.

Also, I suggest people with some technical nouse and creativity spend $1k on a cheap DSLR body, / flash / a decent wide lens, and take their own photos. You’ll spend a bit more than hiring a photographer for a couple of hours, but still have a nice camera on the shelf afterwards!

Umm…the law in question is Australian Copyright Law?

http://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/Documents/ShortGuidetoCopyright-October2012.pdf

In the case of commissioned photographs, the photographer is the copyright owner, subject to any
agreement to the contrary. Where the commissioned photographs are of a private or domestic nature, the commissioning party owns the copyright, subject to any agreement to the contrary.

Wedding photography falls into the ‘private or domestic’ nature described above, and so the commissioner of the photographs owns copyright on them by default, unless they waive this right – normally via a contract.

I’m sure there would be plenty of photographers who don’t understand this, who would be inadvertently breeching their clients copyright by continuing to use the photographs without agreement!