How Real Estate Photographers Make 6 Figures (Without Shooting Weekends)

Pat Miller: 00:00

I'm Pat Miller and this is The Professional Photographer podcast. I am disappointed. I'm disappointed not in you. You're fabulous. Hi, welcome to the show. I'm disappointed in myself. There is a style of photography we have not covered yet on The Professional Photographer Podcast and today we're going to cover it. That is real estate photography. Jonathan Lee is our guest, and he's going to tell the story about how you left weddings to take pictures of houses. Now, houses. How hard can that be? Turns out really hard with a 24-hour deadline that has hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake for your client. This is a high stake, fast-paced, really technical industry. But Jonathan, not only makes it look easy, he explains it in a way that even I can understand it. If you're interested in real estate photography or getting better at the real estate photography that you already do, this one is for you. So we're checking off the old card real estate photography. We're finally covering it. We'll talk to Jonathan next. Jonathan, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

Jonathan Lee: 01:18

Thank you for having me, Pat. I'm great. I'm excited to be here.

Pat Miller: 01:21

Well, I'm excited that you're here, and you're going to talk about something we haven't covered yet on the podcast. We've been on the air for a year. We've done 50 some odd episodes. We've never talked about real estate photography, which is a crime. So we'll get into that in a minute. So if someone hasn't met you yet, tell them who you are and what you do.

Jonathan Lee: 01:42

So I'm Jonathan Lee, I'm a retired Navy. I got into photography back in 2009 part time. And then 2017 I went full time, and at the time, I was doing a lot of weddings and portraits and just the typical things that photographers do. And I thought, like any other photographer thinks, maybe I can fill in the gaps with real estate because it's just a house. How hard could it be? And boy, was I mistaken. But real estate quickly took over my business, and it's amazing. I absolutely love working in this genre.

Pat Miller: 02:17

How did you make that transition? Because you weren't a failed wedding photographer. You were doing a bunch of weddings, and then you became this real estate photographer. So how did that transition happen?

Jonathan Lee: 02:27

So, as anybody who knows, first starting out in photography, things can be very sporadic. And so I was just looking for something to kind of fill in the gaps between weddings and portraits and things like that. And I quickly realized that in my area, there's only a handful of really competent real estate photographers. And I felt like anything in business, you find a need, you plug the need. And I felt like there was a need for somebody who kind of does everything. There were a lot of photographers that just did photography or just did this or just did that. I wanted to be able to do the entire package. And so I kind of started digging into that sphere a little bit and kind of hung my shingle out and got very busy to the point where I think I had told you that in 2019, I shot 53 weddings. And since 2019, I've only shot four because I traded working all the weekends for only working Monday through Friday and making way more money.

Pat Miller: 03:24

More money than doing weddings in real estate?

Jonathan Lee: 03:26

Way more money than doing weddings.

Pat Miller: 03:28

Hold on, wait, wait. Way more money than doing weddings?

Jonathan Lee: 03:31

Way. Year three, I cracked to six figures, and I've just been steadily increasing ever since.

Pat Miller: 03:37

Wow, that's incredible.

Jonathan Lee: 03:39

Yeah, I'm in year eight now. And it's doing great.

Pat Miller: 03:43

So if someone isn't into real estate photography, they may be looking down on it. Well, I take pictures of people; you take pictures of houses. And you're telling me that there's a great life in the real estate game.

Jonathan Lee: 03:56

There really is. If you're motivated, if you're a go getter, if you don't mind working some pretty heavy hours and a lot of driving. There's a lot to be made in this industry. Yeah.

Pat Miller: 04:11

All right, let's set the table. Real estate photography. What are you doing? Describe it to me like I'm 5 years old because I see pictures of houses on Zillow, but I know there's so much more to it than that. So what is the service that you're providing?

Jonathan Lee: 04:25

Sure. So I work directly with the realtors. Realtors in the area. They can reach out to anybody as their photographer and so when a real estate agent reaches out to me, they kind of describe to me, hey, I've got this listing coming up, and this is what I want to do. And being that I'm a full service real estate group here, I do photos, video, virtual tours and aerial work, floor plans, anything and everything you could possibly need to shoot a home. So they book my services, I show up that day, take care of whatever it is that they need taken care of, and then next business day turnaround is a huge thing in this industry. So everything that I do on one day is typically delivered to the client by around 9 am the next morning. So, and of course, that requires me to outsource some of the editing and stuff like that. The only, the only editing that I do outsource is the interior and exterior side of things because there's kind of two different ways you can go about doing real estate photography. You can do a flash ambient blend, which is really great when you're starting out. And you don't have a trusted editor to work with because it's very easy for the layperson to kind of edit using luminosity, masking, and blending techniques. But I shoot run and gun three-bracket HDR in and out. And I have a whole team of editors that are over on the other side of the world. So when I'm sleeping, they're editing. When I'm shooting, they're sleeping.

Pat Miller: 05:55

Now, you covered a lot of great stuff there. And we got to rewind the tape a little bit because part of the deliverables, it's more than just photography. Floor plans, aerials. Did that take extra training? How long did it take for you to get good at providing those services that go beyond just traditional pictures?

Jonathan Lee: 06:13

Well, the good thing is that nowadays with technology the way that it is, there's a lot of systems out there that cater to the real estate photography community that make my job very efficient. And efficiency is something that I'm very, very keen on. I have a system. Being a retired military person, I was a jet engine mechanic. I'm very much a systems person. So it's making sure that I get through things very quickly and very easily, very consistently so, yeah. What was the question again?

Pat Miller: 06:41

Well, you learned how to do floor plans and aerials, and that's more than just taking pictures.

Jonathan Lee: 06:47

Yeah. So the training involved with that, I did need to get my Part 107 license. So any photographer, if any photographer out there, if you're operating a drone, you have to have your 107 license. It's required. The FAA considers anything outside of personal use, commercial use, and so you have to have your Part 107. And I'm sure this has been covered in many other areas, but that was number one, because when I first started reaching out to realtors, the very first question I got asked was, do you have your drone license? So I had to get my drone license. But aside from that, a lot of it was just kind of trial and error. Just learning, listening to your clients, and understanding what their needs are. They need all these different types of media, they need floor plans, they need virtual tours, they need all these other things. And one of the big things that they didn't like was they didn't like hiring a photographer and then hiring a virtual tour guy and then hiring a video guy. They wanted somebody that can do everything. So that was why I really kind of started diving into and learning a lot of the other areas.

Pat Miller: 07:50

And they also need it right away. So the sun never sets on your empire. How did you go about finding someone to do your editing while you sleep? Because that's really clever.

Jonathan Lee: 08:00

So, yeah, there are some Facebook groups online. There's a real estate photography editing Facebook group online. I would recommend, if anybody goes in there looking for an editor, set up a different email address that is only for that because RIP to your inbox, once you put your name out there, you're going to be getting, I mean, I get tons of emails regardless of that. But I went through two different editors before I landed on the one that I'm with now that I have been with for the past few years. They're called NPN Imaging. I have a point of contact in Texas. He's my American stateside point of contact. His name's Ken Robinson, really awesome guy. So if I ever have any problems, I can just Facebook message him and he takes care of everything for me.

Pat Miller: 08:48

I appreciate you giving us an overview of the deliverables, but there's one other distinction that you like to draw. The difference between real estate photography and commercial photography. What is the difference?

Jonathan Lee: 08:59

So real estate photography is all about selling the home. Selling the estate, so to speak. Right? So you're selling the land, the home, the location, things like that. Where a lot of people tend to go wrong when they get into real estate photography. They think that real estate photography kind of crosses over with like Airbnb and short term rentals and things like that. That's more of a commercial aspect because at that point, you're now selling the experience. So there's so much more involved in selling the experience versus selling the home.

Pat Miller: 09:35

Give us an example. Do you mean you don't have a mug with steaming tea and a cookie on it? Or like, give us something tangible to hold on to, because I know that you know what you're talking about, but.

Jonathan Lee: 09:44

Right.

Pat Miller: 09:45

I need a couple of examples.

Jonathan Lee: 09:46

Yeah, so whenever I go in for a real estate and I'm shooting a home, I have to think about the ethical side of things. I cannot misrepresent that property. Right? So there are certain angles and stuff that I will take that will maybe minimize some distractions and things like that. But when it comes to the back end, I can't do a lot of heavy handed editing and things like that. I have to make sure that the property is properly represented for the sake of my clients because I don't want them getting in trouble for having misrepresented the property. When it comes to the Airbnb side of things, you have a little bit more leeway as far as making it pretty, using different types of lighting techniques, photographing different things such as the amenities that are available to the property. So when you go shoot a property for real estate, 2,500 square foot home, if all you're doing is interior and exterior photos, you can be in and out of there in 20 minutes. But if you're doing an Airbnb, you're going to be there probably for an hour with the whoever that host is making sure that you're taking pictures with the cabinets open that show all of the plates and the forks and everything, showing all the games that they have for their people that are staying there. So there's a lot more involved on the, on the, on the shoot side of an Airbnb versus a real estate shoot. And you have to charge accordingly for that.

Pat Miller: 11:10

Thank you for the example. I just didn't get it until now, but that makes total sense. The whole don't get me sued angle, that seems pretty important.

Jonathan Lee: 11:18

Absolutely.

Pat Miller: 11:19

Okay, so you said earlier that, yeah, it is just a house though. Like it's not going to blink when you try and take a picture of it. How hard can it be? What is it like to be a real estate photographer and how is it challenging to the artist?

Jonathan Lee: 11:33

So there are a lot of challenges in the form of, like I was mentioning earlier, you don't have that creative freedom on the back end to do a bunch of fancy editing and stuff like that. So you've got to get it right as right as possible in camera. And a lot of it has to do with angles and camera height, camera placement, composition. You have to be very, very strong in your compositions because you only have maybe eight seconds to capture somebody's attention when they're looking through those photos online. So for instance, whenever you're photographing the interior–when an architect designs a home, they design the interior of the home to be viewed from a seated position. So when you go through and you shoot the home, you typically want the camera at about eye level where you're seated. So that way, you can play into the psychology of the person that is looking at the photo, and you can put them in the space without them being there. You know, as we grow up and we get older, when we look at photos, we know what we like and we know what we don't like. And so there's so much more about real estate photography that lends into psychology and marketing than it does into artistic vision.

Pat Miller: 12:44

That is wild. What you just said blew my head apart. Of course, that's how architects design a house, but I never really thought of it that way.

Jonathan Lee: 12:52

Right.

Pat Miller: 12:53

When you shoot in a studio, you get to control your lights and your backdrops, but you don't get to do that in a house. They've got windows and they've got lights from the kitchen and the living room. Like, how do you manage light to make sure you don't get weird shadows or weird looking pictures?

Jonathan Lee: 13:11

Absolutely. So there's two ways you can go about doing this. One, like I said earlier, you can do the flash and ambient technique. And the flash basically creates a sanitary frame. It can help remove color cast that you're going to get from your daylight balanced light that's coming in through the windows and the incandescent light that's coming in from the living room and the fluorescent light that's coming in from the kitchen. And it can kind of wash all of that out and give you a sanitary frame to work with that has good colors because you know the color that you're pumping into the room. However, if you're working on the side like I'm doing, where it's more run and gun and you're doing a three bracketed frame three images, and sending it off to an editor, that's where having a really good editor comes into play. And they're able to do some tricks and techniques that even I don't understand. And so making sure that you align yourself with a good editor, if that's the route that you're going to take, if you're going to go the HDR route, and mainly the only reason we go the HDR route versus the flash and ambient route is because it takes a little bit more time on site to do the flash and ambient, because typically you're going to do one to three frames of an ambient light and then you're going to do anywhere from one to seven flash frames. If you have multiple adjoining rooms and stuff, you have to go in and light those rooms. But if you're working with just a 3 bracket HDR, you can move through that space extremely quickly once you become proficient at it. And so that allows you to shoot more homes in a day. So you can go from shooting three homes a day to maybe six or seven homes a day, and you can double your revenue.

Pat Miller: 14:46

Now, maybe it's the jet mechanic in you, but I get the vibe that you really like this because it's technical and it's difficult. Is that true?

Jonathan Lee: 14:54

That's very, very true. I do have an artistic side. I am a musician. I like to sing and play video games and things like that. But I do feel that I'm much more technical than I am artistic, sometimes to a fault, because I love doing landscape photography and things like that as well, and wildlife. But yes, real estate photography is so much more technical than it is artistic. And it's about building that system and kind of honing that technique down.

Pat Miller: 15:30

Let's turn our attention to the customer. So we want to be a real estate photographer. That means people have to hire us. Who's doing the hiring? Who are we going after?

Jonathan Lee: 15:40

So we're going after real estate agents. And by doing so, the way that I did it when I first started out was I live in the north Florida area just outside of Jacksonville. So it's the largest area, metropolis area, next to me. I'm about 30-45 minutes south of there. So what I would do is I went and printed up a bunch of flyers that talked about me and the services that I offer. And I would drive to an area of town, and I would park in, like, a Target parking lot, and I'd pull up Google Maps and I'd type in real estate agency. And I would plot a map to all the different real estate agencies. And I would walk in and just start handing out flyers. And a lot of the times when you walk in, you can just talk to the receptionist and they'll say, hey, the mailboxes are around the side. Go ahead and stuff the boxes, and you can go in there and put your flyers in. I did that for maybe the first year or two that I was in business, but ever since then, I haven't done any advertising. I don't advertise online. I don't advertise by doing any of that stuff anymore. Everything that I do now is all word of mouth.

Pat Miller: 16:41

And what do they want? Like, they hire you? What are their baseline expectations of what a good job looks like?

Jonathan Lee: 16:47

Their baseline expectations are consistent quality. That's the name of the game. Because a realtor, when somebody is looking through Zillow or wherever, that realtor can't talk to them. The only person that can talk to that client are the pictures and the media that you provide for that Realtor. So you are that realtor's face and brand when they can't speak. So they want to align themselves with somebody who is a consummate professional, that you're always on time, that you produce high quality results all the time, and that you hold yourself accountable for any mistakes that you may make and get out there and make them right.

Pat Miller: 17:25

I would imagine, as you touched on earlier, speed is part of the game. That's because they want them that quickly because the market is moving.

Jonathan Lee: 17:33

That's correct, yep. So speed is definitely a very high priority in this industry. So being able to have a lightning fast turnaround is going to set you apart from your peers. Next day turnaround is typically expected in this industry by me having all of my stuff out by 9 am the next morning. That's setting myself a little bit ahead of some of the competition. And my clients absolutely love it because a lot of the times they get a listing that just gets dropped in their lap one afternoon and they're like, oh my gosh, I gotta get this thing online. And you know, I want my pictures yesterday.

Pat Miller: 18:13

I know that, like in senior pictures or maybe even headshots, you may tell a friend, hey, I got a headshot from Sally. You should go see her. I can't imagine realtors wanting to help other realtors. Are they competitive or do they refer you to one another?

Jonathan Lee: 18:28

You know, some realtors are very competitive. It is a very competitive workspace. But I do some things that kind of keep my realtors from keeping me a secret. Everything that I shoot comes with a floor plan and my logo is on all the floor plans. So whenever anything, anything gets uploaded to the MLS system, whatnot, my floor plan is in there so people can see they know who shot it. And you know, I do a really good job at rewarding my clients. I do have a referral system. Any of my clients that refer somebody else to me, they get a $100 credit on their account towards anything that they do in the future. And honestly, I feel like my wavelength kind of aligns with really high performing real estate agents as well. Just the way that I think and the way that I approach my business is very similar to the way they do as well. And they appreciate the fact that I bend over backwards for them and really do everything that I can for them. And most of them are absolutely ecstatic about sharing me with other people.

Pat Miller: 19:36

That's important to know who you want to serve. Have you ever told a real estate agent that you didn't, like, get along with, "No, I don't want to take your pictures?"

Jonathan Lee: 19:45

Absolutely. I believe that one of the biggest things that you have to do in this industry in specific, you have to set clear boundaries. You have to think these, A lot of these realtors out, they're very much a type A personality and they're going to push as much as they can. And so you have to set boundaries in this industry or you're going to get run all over. So there have been a few cases where I've told a realtor, I said, hey, I don't think this is going to work out. You know, this arrangement is not working for me. I'd be more than happy to refer you to some, some other folks in the industry, but we're not working together anymore.

Pat Miller: 20:24

So we have to deal with a type A personality. We have to go out there and hustle at the beginning to earn the relationships. But the backside is pretty consistent business and big bucks with Monday through Friday work hours. All of that sounds really attractive. If that sounds attractive to someone that's watching, tell me about the person that could make it like, who is this right for?

Jonathan Lee: 20:47

This is definitely right for somebody who is as mobile as far as they don't mind getting up and driving all over, and everybody's situation is going to be a little bit different, depending on what area of the country you're in. If you live near a large metro–like for me, I'm on a fringe where I'm between a big metropolis and a lot of rural areas. So there's a lot of–my average drive time is 42 minutes and I average about 100 miles a week driving. So yeah, there's a lot of travel involved with it, but that gives me a great amount of time to listen to awesome podcasts like the PPA podcast.

Pat Miller: 21:26

Hey, I like this job.

Jonathan Lee: 21:28

So, yeah, I enjoy the freedom of it. I've always just been fascinated with houses too. Not every house is a million dollar house, but I do get to go into some really, really cool places. I've shot places, homes for movie stars and politicians and professional athletes, and everywhere in between. So I get to meet a lot of really interesting people and it's a lot of fun. So if you're the type of person that is as outgoing, can have a conversation with anybody, is really all about taking care of your client and just being that linchpin in their business, then this is definitely the right type of business for you.

Pat Miller: 22:12

I want to hear a success story. Tell us a story about a time that your photography helped sell a house or really got a realtor's attention because you nailed it.

Jonathan Lee: 22:22

You know, I've been working–my second client that I ever shot for him and I are still great friends and we still work together to this day, eight years later. I've shot literally thousands of homes for him and each year, I make probably roughly $20,000 to $25,000 off just this one client. After we started working together. About six months after we started working together, he put together a spreadsheet that showed this is what I was doing before I started working with John, and this is what my business is doing after I started working with him. And he was able to show all of these quantifying numbers so much so that one of the real estate agencies wrote him an open-ended check and said, whatever it takes to get you on board with us, you fill out a number and you're in. And when I first started this, I thought there's no way in the world anybody would ever buy a home without actually seeing it in person. But Pat, if I had a dollar for every time I heard one of my clients say, "Hey, we went under contract in less than 24 hours and it was bought cash, site unseen, by a guy on the other side of the country, just based off of your pictures and your media alone," I'd have a little bit more money.

Pat Miller: 23:44

Wow. You can't walk in and get good at this straight away. So what is the growing and the learning curve look like to go from I'm interested to I'm competent. How long does that take?

Jonathan Lee: 23:55

Man, there are a lot of different ways to go about doing it. You can do the YouTube university thing. The best way that I would recommend anybody wanting to get into this type of an industry is to align themselves with somebody who's already successful in their area and see if you can tag along with them and help them out. Some real estate photographers are very guarded. I'm an open book. I love helping and I love teaching people. I love sharing what I know and if I can help anybody to have the financial and personal freedom that I've gained by doing this business, I'm all about it. So I teach and do a lot of that stuff as well. And there's several different ways to go about it, but there isn't one way that's this is the way. And I don't think there are any, like if you go through the PPA website or if you go to like KelbyOne or something like that, there really aren't a whole lot of courses and classes that kind of, here's step one, here's step two, this is what you got to do, and now you're good. So that's why I've started to do a lot more teaching and going across Florida and the United States doing classes on this.

Pat Miller: 25:14

Okay, when's the next time you're doing it? This sounds interesting.

Jonathan Lee: 25:18

So the next big class that I have–I had a one day class in April down in Miami and it went so well that they wanted me back for a five-day class. So we have a full five-day class that's going to be–it's August 18th through the 22nd. It's down at my dear friend Jesus Cabrera's studio down in Miami. And I mean, who doesn't want to come to Miami in the summer, right? We're partnered with a hotel that's got great rates for everybody that you can book a block of rooms. I'm sure all the information for that's going to be in the podcast notes as well as on my website if you go to jwleemedia.com. You can just scroll down and click on the classes and stuff like that and go there. But it's going to be a full five-day class. We're going to be teaching literally everything you need to know from the back end, business side to shooting on location. We're actually going to be going on location and shooting a home. We're going to be doing drone. We're going to be doing video virtual tours, floor plans. We're doing everything. So that way, at the end of those five days, you know what you need to know to get out there and start hitting the streets.

Pat Miller: 26:26

You not only make a great living in photography, you take a lot of time to give back, to teach others, and to organize meetups and community around photography. Why is that so important to you?

Jonathan Lee: 26:39

It's really important to me because I didn't have that when I was growing up in photography, so to speak. I started cutting my teeth in photography, living in Chicago and it was very difficult to find somebody that was an open book that would maybe kind of hold my hand and help me along and stuff like that. And I was a drill instructor in the military. I've always just loved helping and teaching people, and I love giving back to the photography community because I feel like it's given so much to me. So volunteering in the community is extremely important to me.

Pat Miller: 27:16

Hanging around people trying to get better either at Imaging or your local chapter, what would you tell a photographer so they could be a better member, like a better contributor to the overall health of the community? Does anything come to mind?

Jonathan Lee: 27:32

Yeah, just be open and be honest and don't see other photographers as competition. You know, we love to compete in photography. And I think that some people approach the competition side from the wrong angle, as it's me trying to be better than the next person. And I feel like the competition side is more about making you better. And you know, what's the old saying? The rising tide–arising–all the boats raised when the tide rises. I can't remember the saying.

Pat Miller: 28:10

That's good enough.

Jonathan Lee: 28:12

But you know what I'm saying. I feel like when you surround yourself with like-minded people that are, that are open and honest and if you can be open and honest in front of people that it helps kind of bring that barrier down for them and it lets them know that, hey, I can do this too. I can be successful at this. You know, I don't have to be this special person with a God-given gift, and that's the only type of people. I mean, you're not out there being the next lead guitarist for the major rock band. You know, anybody can do this. And I feel like the more that we as leaders in the community kind of get out there and kind of break those barriers down for some people that are maybe new in the industry and show them that, hey, you're welcome too. Come on over here. We'd love to teach you and we'd love to have you. Just being more social and outgoing about those type of things.

Pat Miller: 29:03

Congratulations on your success and thanks for taking the time to come on the show today. Jonathan. I really appreciate it.

Jonathan Lee: 29:08

Thank you, Pat. I really appreciate it as well.

Pat Miller: 29:10

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of The Professional Photographer Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation about real estate photography. Pretty cool to have him on the show and a super good guy. If you see Jonathan at Imaging, please go up and say hello. Great dude. Now before you go, tell us what you liked about the show in the comments. Also, super bonus points if you like and subscribe to the Professional Photographer podcast. We would love it if you do. And speaking of Imaging and the Professional Photographers of America, you gotta be a member. Because if you're not a member yet, you are missing out on incredible resources like equipment, insurance, top notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. It's perfect for photographers who are serious about growing their business in a sustainable and profitable way at PPA. You belong here. Discover more about membership@ppa.com. That's PPA.com I'm Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community and the publisher of the Small Business Summary newsletter. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you right here next time. Take care.