Introducing Photo and Video Editor, Jennifer Davis

You may be surprised to learn that DMD Real Estate Photography doesn’t just treat its clients, colleagues, and employees like family - we really are a family affair! 

As many of our clients and colleagues know, DMD was a one-man show in the beginning. Soon enough, though, the work was coming in faster than one photographer could reasonably handle, and founder Dave Davis began building his team. 

Naturally, he turned to those he felt he could trust most with important elements of his budding business. The person he looked to for photo editing? His sister, Jennifer Davis.

Jennifer’s background is in construction, giving her a unique perspective on how to best highlight key features of a home through its gallery photos. She holds a degree in construction management and is currently on-call remotely with DMD while working towards a BA in Business Administration at CWU. 

When we spoke with Jennifer about her favorite part of editing for DMD, she told us she enjoys editing video content most. Those amazing clips you find across ours and our clients’ sites and social platforms? The production process takes more creativity than you might think - and that’s by design!

Typically, Jennifer splices footage from various sources together, overlays music, and works through transitions. Her goal is to draw viewers into what we’ve captured on-screen so that they never even think about the process. 

We also love that she understands how subjective something like real estate photography can be, taking time to learn each client’s unique preferences for showcasing their homes, and making a note of it so that those wishes are incorporated into the next job. 

It is our goal at DMD to ensure every job is completed in a way that our clients feel the end product is as if they have designed and created every image themselves. And that’s exactly why we have Jennifer on our team.

If you are an Alaska real estate agent looking for a dedicated photography team that learns your preferences and can consistently provide high-quality listing photos to you, consider working with Jennifer and the rest of the DMD team. 

For those of you who already have a photographer you trust and love - we can still help. DMD even offers photo-editing options only. So agents who only need assistance with photo editing can upload listing photos directly to us, too. Reach out to learn more.

Four Reasons Lighting Is Crucial for Real Estate Photography

Depending on a photographer’s particular niche, they may prefer utilizing natural light, and in some cases, it’s the only way to truly capture the perfect image - even in real estate. 

While often there are components of natural light that make sense for real estate photography, by-and-large strategic artificial lighting is crucial to the successful sale of a home. Here are four reasons why.

Reason #1: Homebuying Is a Visual (and Emotional) Endeavor

A well-lit home appeals to both our visual and emotional buying processes. In fact, science has proven that good lighting, in general, can heighten a person’s mood. Poor lighting has even been linked to depression!

When you think about the investment of time, money, thought, and commitment that goes into buying a home, it’s easy to understand why a buyer would pass over a poorly-lit property for one that is light, airy, and bright. 

Reason #2: You Must Present Your Alaska Home in Its Best Light

Often, you (and your clients) pour time and money into improving a home in an effort to ready the property for listing. But that won’t matter if potential buyers can’t clearly see what’s in the photos. The right photographer understands the importance of presenting a property in, quite literally, the best light. 

Not properly investing in this marketing component would be a misstep in every sense of the word. This is especially true for the Alaska real estate landscape, where many times your listing gallery is the only way a buyer sees the home before making an offer.  

Reason #3: The Right Lighting Guides Homebuyers’ Eyes

Strategic illumination can help guide the eye of a potential buyer through every aspect of every image you include in your gallery. Here are two prime examples: 

• Track lighting can be directed toward specific built-in elements or to highlight certain wall features in a home. 

• The combination of recessed lighting and the reflective glow of a well-positioned whiteboard can lend to a dreamy, golden look in a cozy Alaska home. 

Reason #4: Great Lighting Helps Your Clients Dream Bigger

You may have noticed that real estate photographers love a well-staged home to photograph. It is our job to develop the story your potential buyers are dreaming of with your listing, and, as you might imagine, it is far easier to tell a good story in a staged room than in an empty one.  

Fantastic lighting helps us weave in the subtle details of a home by shedding light into its darkest corners, making a small, dark room seem bigger and more wide open, and showcasing its best features. We use lighting to help your clients dream bigger.

DMD Real Estate Photography Knows Property Lighting

Ultimately, the right lighting in your photographs is crucial to selling a home. To see more creative ways DMD Real Estate Photography has used lighting to tackle some of the complex challenges we face when photographing real estate, check out this previous post. 

If you’d like to talk about a specific Alaska property of your own, and how we suggest lighting your listing images, give us a call!  

Get the Staging Your Clients Dream of Straight Out of DMD’s 3D Staging Catalog

Depending on a myriad of factors - cash flow, timing, availability, and so on - physical staging may not be your best option for a particular listing. Which is unfortunate, because research has shown that staging can make a big difference in selling properties for the highest possible price. This is particularly important in places like Alaska, where so many buyers don’t even step foot into properties before making the purchase and must rely on what photo galleries show them.

Luckily, technology has made this add-on service a more accessible marketing tool. Yes, we’re talking about virtual staging. We recently wrote about the power of virtual staging and its ability to increase your real estate sales. Why do we know so much about how well it works? Because we’ve been able to witness the huge difference it makes when clients use our 3D staging catalog.

Utilizing DMD’s staging catalog is literally as easy as 1, 2, 3. Below, we’re going to tell you more about the styles we have to offer, the rooms we can “furnish” for you, and the final touches we can make on each room of every virtually staged property we photograph for you. 

Step 1: Select a Style

First, you select a general style. This is something you’ll probably want to carry throughout the home. We recommend letting the property help you choose. 

What does that mean? Ask some questions: when was the home originally built? Is it a cabin or a lodge-type dwelling? A modern family home? 

Alternatively, for partial staging (say, you’ve only physically furnished a couple of rooms, but want to enhance the online listing), you may want to stick with the style of the furniture physically in the space already. 

The five style categories currently available in our catalog include Modern, Traditional, Transitional, Nordic, and Holiday.

Step 2: Furnish Each Room

We have separated furnishings into four main “rooms,” plus one additional section for other final touches (addressed below). The rooms are living room, bedroom, kitchen/dining, and bathroom. 

The living rooms we offer run the gamut in terms of components, style, and layout. In the bedroom section, you can find combinations for children, guests, and master suites. Due to open-concept trends, our kitchen and dining options include combination sets, and there are three bath footprints to choose from as well.  

Step 3: The Final Touches

While there are options for every piece of furniture you need to fill a room appropriately, just as there would be for physical staging, it’s the final touches that really make a space. And DMD’s virtual staging catalog has just what you need. 

From potted plants and flooring options to shelves filled with books and a lamp on each table and coffeemakers in the kitchen, virtual staging is able to help potential buyers visualize all the potential your listing has to offer. The possibilities are endless!

The best part? It’s just so much easier (and more budget-friendly) than actual staging!

Call DMD to Learn More About Our Staging Catalog Offerings

Don’t let budget be the reason your client is unable to successfully stage their home. Instead, call DMD and we’ll develop a virtual staging plan for you. 

In the meantime, check out some of our own before-and-after shots for our clients’ listings, or feel free to peruse our 3D catalog online. If you have any questions about virtual staging packages for your real estate listings, don’t hesitate to reach out!