It’s a tough life for any real estate photographer in Belgium.  Have you ever checked the photography on a Belgian real estate website already?  Apalling, to say the least.  That’s because people in Belgium don’t understand the importance of marketing and the power of images and photography.  The general idea in Belgium is that you’d rather do it yourself and not spend any money on it.  Consequently, the photography on the websites doesn’t show the full potential of the place you’re trying to sell, so you’re not getting the attention the place deserves and in doing so, you potentially loose a lot of money on the sale afterwards (which would make up for the cost of a photographer).  Why people do this really beats me.  I’ve written it down in this blogpost, where one sees the “before” and “after” of a house that went up for sale at at much higher price than initially planned – and was consequently sold at that price because it drew a large crowd of people coming to have a look at it.

Nevertheless, there are still people who see the value in real estate photography.  Notary/solicitor De Jonghe from Ostend contacted me in order to photograph an Irish Pub with hotel right in the heart of the city.  So I went down to the “Celtic Ireland” in the Langestraat in Ostend to photograph the interior of the pub and the hotel.

Amongst the most important parts of a pub the counter for sure is one.  In this Irish pub the counter was a beautiful but humongous one that had to be lit in a professional way.

So, by just using available light, this is what showed up on my screen – an underexposed image with a few spots of light.

By adapting my shutter speed I tried to draw-in more available light in order to establish my basic exposure.

Lastly, I placed a few flashes (type Nikon SB900 speedlights), in order to open up the dark areas in the scene, thereby creating a warm atmosphere.

The same technique was used to light a part of the pub with very little available light.  The first (mainly backlit) shot shows a rather dull image.

But with the use of carefully placed speedlights (there are 4 in this particular image) you can create a much more interesting photograph.

All the above images have been made and post-processed without the use of Photoshop.  But sometimes it just is too difficult to get the image right in one shot, especially when you’re working within time constraints and with limitations of gear. I usually carry about 4 to 5 flashes around, but for this particular shot it would have been very time consuming and technically not so easy to create the image in-camera.  So I opted for the photoshop route. That meant that I had to shoot the overhead stained glass – which was much brighter than the interiour – seperately from the interor and then ultimately combine both images in photoshop to create the final image.

Lastly, I’m posting a few extra shots of the interior.  If you’re interested, the place is up for sale and will be sold on the first of June 2011 in Ostend.

Al images are made with Nikon D3s and a Nikon 24mm PC (Tilt-Shift) lens.  The flashes (Nikon SB900) are used through the Nikon CLS system.

In a next blog post I will show the hotel rooms.