Model homes

Oakland-based photographer Scott Hargis likens the modern-day real estate search - most of which is initially done by viewing photos of homes on the Internet - to online dating.

"It's like match.com," he said, referring to the dating site. "It's all about being hot or not. If a person doesn't have a completely sexy photo, you're not going to click on it to see if they've got a nice personality or if you like the same movies. It's all about that initial photo."

Hargis, who has done a lot of business in real estate photography in the East Bay over the past five years, says that these days, a buyer's first impression is online, which means having quality photos of a listing is paramount.

"Instead of curb appeal, it's Web appeal," he said. "If you've got blurry, crappy photos, people aren't going to take the time to look and see if the home is a good deal."

In the last 10 years, professional real estate photography in the Bay Area has gone from a luxury for high-dollar listings to a requisite for any property on the market.

John Hayes, the founder of Open Homes Photography, one of the most prominent real estate photography companies in San Francisco, stumbled into real estate photography in 2001 and initially worked as a marketing and art director for Droubi Real Estate before they were bought out by Coldwell Banker. He remembers the days when things weren't so sophisticated.

"When I started, people were first shifting from film photography to digital, so people were still printing out the film photographs, Scotch-taping them onto paper and photocopying them and making their fliers that way," he said. "And most times, agents just shot places themselves on their own little cameras. So it's come a long ways."

Vanguard Properties agent Olga Soboleva worked as an art director for a publishing company before getting into real estate. Once she was hired by Vanguard, she began to handle its photography and marketing. She remembers how Vanguard was one of the few agencies that provided high-end photos for each of its listings when she started.

"I've always felt like Vanguard, going back five or six years ago, made having quality photos a priority before a lot of other agencies did," she said. "But now everybody puts a premium on it."

Not only is real estate photography a recent phenomenon, it's a regional one as well. The Bay Area, in many ways the epicenter of high technology in the United States, has one of the more sophisticated real estate markets in terms of marketing. But even in some of the outlying communities, things aren't as advanced as they are in San Francisco.

"It's even regional around here, because oftentimes places in the East Bay and Peninsula have less sophisticated marketing than we do in San Francisco," Hayes said.

But, Hargis said, even San Francisco lags behind some international markets.

"Brisbane, Australia, is without question the hub of sophisticated real estate marketing," he said.

It's also tough work. For starters, real estate photographers have to work within a limited time frame, often only having a couple hours to shoot a home. And there's never a guarantee that the weather conditions will be ideal.

"Real estate is one of the toughest genres of interior photography, because it needs to be fast and cheap, and it needs to be good," Hargis said. "You have to be in and out of the place in about two hours, sometimes even faster than that. And you need to get at least 15 pretty good shots in that time span, which in other forms of photography is just an absurd amount of time."

And often, the shoots can be hectic, as getting a home to the market on time is almost always a stressful endeavor for all parties involved.

"You're usually crawling all over the people who are staging the place, and you've got painters and plumbers coming in and out of the home," Hargis said. "One out of 10 times you go to a property that is actually completely ready to shoot. People always worry about the amount of light you usually get during these shoots, but usually the quality of light is more of an issue."

Despite the challenges and pay rates that are significantly lower than other forms of photography (Hargis said he charges around $200 for most of his shoots), being able to go into some of the nicest homes in the country makes it worth it.

"Oh, it's really fun work," he said. "You get to walk into places that are phenomenal that you never would have believed existed. And you kind of feel like a rock star when you walk into them after people have spent weeks getting it ready. They have the place as perfectly presented as it could be, and when you walk in, they're like, 'Ooh, here he is.' And you can pretty much go to whatever room in the house you want."

This article appeared on page M - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle