Up Close Vs. Far-Away

Written by Acme Mag

Spacecraft is a premium photography studio specialising in architectural and editorial imagery. Director of Spacecraft Media, Cheyne Toomey, works with leading agents, developers and architects to photograph premium images to market a property to its highest potential.

Capturing the character of a property through architectural imagery is an emotive process. Not only does it involve focusing on the home’s quirks, but it’s also about capturing the energy and feel of the home too.

“You’re predominantly working with natural light and following light throughout the home as the shoot progresses,” Cheyne says, “When working with natural light, you’re able to retain the feel of the home, hence capturing its personality, rather than filling it with artificial light and making it look stark and lifeless.”

With so much choice on offer for buyers, it’s crucial to capture the personality of a home when photographing it. Buyers tend to spend their week finding homes to inspect on the weekend, and they want clear and beautiful marketing material to help them decide what’s on their hit list. Spacecraft often receives feedback from both buyers and agents, saying that when a home is shot in their style, it translates from photos to reality in a much clearer sense.

“This makes buyers feel more comfortable when inspecting and creates a better experience for the agent/buyer relationship. That’s because we have been able to portray the personality of the home online”. The shots are crucial for capturing personality. They revolve around telling a story and that natural light and clever angles are critical in the process.

By spending time planning how to tell the unique story of a particular home, the resulting images naturally portray it in a way that highlights its best bits.

“When shooting a home, we think strategically about how the space would be used, but also which angles are going to be used to make the home look as appealing as possible. These are often editorial and architecture style images, captured from a one-point perspective that create statement and drama.

“We are always following the light. We try to book a property for a shoot at its optimum time. If the home’s main living area is facing east, we will book it for a morning shoot.

“On the other side of the coin, architectural photography is a very time-consuming task, often requiring a full day to shoot a home. We apply this logic to the way we shoot real estate, but break it down into two to three hour blocks for our common products, giving us the time we need to get the right content and giving vendors peace of mind, knowing that we are caring for their home and campaign.”

Cheyne’s tips for vendors planning their home for a photographer is simple: preparation. By engaging a stylist and working with them to declutter and style, the better the home is presented. The better presented the better the photography.

To see more of Cheyne’s work, head to spacecraftmedia.com.au or see our article on his photography style here.