As many of you may know, one of my biggest pet peeves is boring apartment community pictures.  Especially when we think about trying to compete for eyeballs on an ILS, is the picture worth a thousand words or just worth one:  DULL.

I ran across an Instagram profile recently which I personally think is the ultimate inspiration album for what an apartment community photo album could be.  She actually isn't in our industry, and all she does is take pictures of her dog, apartment, and life, and yet those pictures do a masterful job of conveying emotion and telling a story through the images.  One of the most important aspects is that because she is not trying to "sell" the room, her pictures are never just a showcase of the apartment – they are pictures of life that exists within that apartment.  That is a key distinction to what normally happens with apartment community photography, in that we get so caught up with showing the features of the apartment or beautiful decorations that we don’t work to show what it could be like to actually live there.

Let me share some of my favorite examples, and please share your thoughts in the comments below!

This one is actually probably closest to "standard" photography normally used in our space. It is a wide shot of a nicely-prepared room. It's perfectly nice, but as you scroll down, notice the difference in perspective. This first picture isn't of someone living in the space - it is a picture OF the space. Conversely, as you scroll down, the pictures are taken from the resident's perspective - like you are looking through her eyes as she lives her life. That's important to note as we try to create a lifestyle and want prospects to see themselves living in our apartments.

There are so many things I love about this picture.  First of all, you just know it is a chilly winter day, and you can feel the heat emanating from the fire.  The flicker of the flame also gives the picture a sense of movement, even though it is a static image.  Most importantly, the viewer can imagine him/herself sitting there, favorite pup lying beside with a nice warm cup of coffee to stave off the cold.  From our perspective, as we think about setting up our photography, imagine for a second that the person is not there, the dog is gone, the fire is out, and no coffee cup.  At that point, it is just a strange picture of mostly the floor, which we would never normally take a picture of.  In other words, what we are seeing is the setting of a scene, not just a picture of an apartment; however, the apartment is one of the most crucial aspects of the entire picture as it is the backdrop of this person’s life! 

Don’t we all wish we could be that dog?  We lie in the warm sunlight, but feeling a slight breeze as it flows through the window.  It might be the perfect Sunday nap, and again, it is a story that we can put ourselves in.

This one is great because it shows the apartment actually being used.  Normally, apartment photography showcases a made up arrangement of parts – everything in its place, especially decorations.  But great photography captures the apartment in motion, whether it is cooking dinner, lounging watching a movie, or in this case, washing the dog.

When we are talking about a lifestyle, however, it isn’t limited to just the apartment.  When a prospects thinks about living at your community, they also think about hiking through the foothills with their dog.  The dog is also used as a connection point that ties the apartment to their adventure throughout the surrounding world.

Similar to the first picture, this piece evokes so much emotion for the viewer as he/she imagines sitting in the soothing tub with a cup of tea.  I’m not a bath taker, and yet I want to be there right now.

I don’t mean to talk negatively about another person’s photograph, but compare the above picture with this one:

This picture is perfectly nice, and if you saw it independently, you might think it is a nicely laid out picture of a bathroom.  There's not really wrong with it, but does it evoke any of the same emotion as the first one?  

I think a lot of photography for apartment communities makes the mistake of only showing a perfect summer sun-shiny day.  Yes, that should probably make up the majority of the pictures; however, there are so many opportunities for seasonal photography that evoke a completely different type of emotion. The feeling of cozying up as the snow falls outside is completely different than running through the grass in the summer, and that can be used to tug on their heartstrings in a completely different way. As a side note, I think this type of situation works best when leading up to a season. For example, as we get further into fall, people look forward to the upcoming holidays, imagine snow covered trees, and in general would feel a positive feeling towards this type of picture. Fast forward to late February, however, and everybody is sick of snow, so featuring this image is probably not going to elicit the response you want.

This is a similar example where it isn’t featuring a bright day, but rather a beautiful sunset lounging in the apartment.  When your competition is showing the same old mid-day pictures, this one really stands out.

Lastly, I love this picture because it doesn’t show off the apartment at all, and yet, we all know that it is on the bed in their apartment.  The photography has done such a good job at telling a story that we already know details surrounding the picture even if it isn’t being explicitly shown. 

One more note I would like you all to consider: one of the suggested Instagram accounts that popped up was a profile featuring absolutely beautifully done up apartments.  They were perfectly designed, perfectly staged, and spot on photography.  And frankly, if I had gone to that page first, I would think about how beautiful the pictures were.  However, looking at them now, I think “staged” is the most important term.  They weren’t able to capture any of the same emotion.  Some of the pictures even had a dog, but somehow the dog seemed posed, like another piece of decoration.  The absolutely beautiful pictures of the apartments told no story, didn’t evoke any emotion from me.  They were more focused on showcasing the furniture and decorations instead of showcasing the life I could have in that spot.  I don’t want to say that beautiful photos of decorated apartments are bad – I just want to make a very big distinction between that type of imagery, and imagery that evokes a strong emotional connection with the prospect.

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