Jasper:
Hi there, I'm Japer from Yellow Glove Productions. And today I'm talking with David Gaffney, one of the top property photographers, if not the top property photographer in the UK. Number one.

David:
Number one.

Jasper:
So, today, we're going to be talking about video and photos for property, why you need it, why they're useful. Do you want to talk about your experience with property photography to start with?

David:
Well, I've been doing property photography for about, six years now. It was a company called Housesimple. You probably heard of them. They called up my wedding site, because I'd never done property before. And they said, "Oh, you're a wedding photographer, do you do properties?" And I've never done properties before, but never look at gift horse in the mouth. I said, "Yes." Got straight onto YouTube. Oh, what am I going to do? Went there the next day, did the shoot. It was all great. And I've been doing it ever since. And as you know, we've been pushing our way forward to the top of the tree, the best designers, the best builders. We are at the top of the tree now. So, if you want to get into property photography, just go for it. Go down to your local estate agents and say, "Let me do a free photo shoot for you." Get yourself in the door and away you go.

Jasper:
What is the point then in having property photography, why not just do it on your iPhone? What would you say stands the work you do out from the crowd?

David:
Well, you get a lot of the estate agents that they started out doing it on their iPhones and stuff, but they noticed that other estate agents were basically producing better marketable material with the videos and with professional photography. Because at the end of the day, you're selling something that's worth up to half a million, a million quid, so you've got to put your best foot forward. You can't just send someone in there with an iPhone after you've done an entire year of renovation work and design work. You've got to put your best foot forward. When they bring us into the picture, that's at the end of so much hard work that the builder or the designer has done, this is their baby. And it's up to us to then take it another few notches up to say, "Hey, listen, this is what it can really look like." So, that's that's where we come in.

Jasper:
Yeah. And when it's all been staged as well, when the set's been dressed, essentially, it's just so nice to have those shots that are going to outlast the tenants that come in and you know you can re-put them up every time maybe a tenant leaves or moves on. Or if you plan on selling the home, anything like that, you've got quality photos of it dressed, details, everything like that. And it just makes all the difference, doesn't it?

David:
Yeah. I mean, the quality that the photography and the video is at nowadays is... Remember when you looked at the old magazines?

Jasper:
Yeah.

David:
And you see like a house shoot and it'd be a celebrity house shoot, and you think, "Wow, that's a brilliant house. That's the quality, that's the level that we're shooting at now. And especially with the HMO, you want to do that shoot before the tenants come in, before the students come in, because literally about half an hour after they walk in the door, the place looks like a bomb site. So, you need to get in there, record how everything looks absolutely fantastic, then put it into your marketing material and off you go.

Jasper:
So, in terms of like the work just increasing in quality, I mean, we are always trying to outdo ourselves for every shoot I feel. But I guess what we do, we try and bring personality to the photos, to the video, not just making it boring. No, you get all those detailed shots and I'll do the same with the video. Again, the detailed shot's guiding people through with cross fades and all that.

David:
Well, the thing is, I think because we come from different areas of photography and videographer, videography, I mean, we bring something very different into the property photography realm, so to speak. For instance, I've got a client, the client that we shot for recently, she's very careful with money. Let me just say, she's careful with money. And she saw one of your videos and she was absolutely blown away. Now, she saw loads of property videos left, right, and center. She's had lots of videographers come and work for her. But when she saw yours, after the work we've been doing up in Manchester, she was like, "I've got to have it, I've got to have him, I've got to have Jasper." I was like, "What about me?" "Don't know, I've got to have Jasper."

David:
So, I said, well, I tried to put her off you because I said, "Because we're certainly not the cheapest. We're certainly not the most expensive." But I thought, no, she's not going to go for that. But she saw that and I gave her the price and she was like, "Yeah, I want it. I want him." Because the way you've done it is just not like anything she's ever seen before, especially with that property you did in Manchester. Just that beautiful scene where you were sliding across, not you, the camera obviously, sliding across the hallway and it was really dark and sexy and moody. And it was like, wow, this looks really cinematic.

Jasper:
Yeah, it looks good, doesn't it?

David:
It's not just someone walking around with a video camera going on, cup of tea, love, but two sugars. Yeah, tea, love, you know what I mean? It was lot. It was absolutely brilliant. So, that's where we're going now. Even the most hesitant customers and HMO people and vendors are coming to us now and wanting our services.

Jasper:
It's just like bringing different perspective to what's been done before.

David:
Yeah. It's different, that's it. It's just a jump in quality that's really noticeable. Subtle, but noticeable, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Jasper:
And what we've done as well, we started doing the 360 tours as well, which is obviously something I think born out of lockdown, really that's really got popular. I feel like 360 obviously gives you a chance to be contactless. And if there's attendant from one good point, someone said the other day would say, have a lot of international students coming to live in their HMO. So, they're not going to be able to pop in next Tuesday or anything like that. So, they can just send them the links and the video, the photos 360 to all.

David:
But the debate now is this, video or 360. Now, I know you do them both. You do them both very, very well, the best in the country, in my opinion. But what do you prefer? I tend to go for your videos. When I look at your videos and then I look at the 360, I'm just more turned on by the video. It's just really more sexy. Do you know what I mean?

Jasper:
I think it's not either, or for me, I think one complements the other. If you have the video, it's going to be, you're feeling the mood of the property and you're gaining a sense of the style of it. Is this a place that you're going to want to live and it's in its set up.

David:
Yeah, I suppose it comes down to the actual, the need of the clients. But I mean, they're both fantastic to have, both comparable in price. Personally, if it was me, if I was the customer, I'd go for video over 360, but obviously I'd get rid of the 360 end of video for my amazing photos because I'm the best in the country.

Jasper:
That's it. And I feel like with the 360, it's good because then you get a sense of the space. With the video, you get mood of the space. With the 360, it's very much a sense of you can look over there, okay, that's where the on suite door is and things like that. So, you can really imagine yourself living there.

David:
Well, there's also the actual, what kind of 360 are you going to do? Are you going to go with a camera called the ZED 1 or are you going to go with... What's the big one?

Jasper:
The Matterport.

David:
The Matterport. Now, we've all seen those Matterport 360 tours. And wow, they are sexy. I mean, you do have to pay a little bit more for them, the hosting for the actual 360 tour itself can be quite expensive, but you really do pick up on the jump in quality. So, it's really what you're prepared to pay for.

Jasper:
Yeah. I mean, 360's, now with those things like Matterport, you get a 3D scan of the space.

David:
Yeah. Like the doll house thing?

Jasper:
Yeah.

David:
Yeah, that's great. Really good, wicked.

Jasper:
Rather than like a photo. There's so many levels now of the 360 tour, like we were saying, the jump in quality with photos and video. There's so many levels now of the 360 tour. So, it's just crazy where technology's gone.

David:
Now, when I was talking about comparing the 360 to the video, I was talking about the ZED 1, but you talk about Matterport. Mine might actually go with the 360 over the video now because that quality is so amazing.

Jasper:
And in terms of, I guess we talked about what we're offering and why it's good, but I guess the real benefit of having good photos, good video, good 360, is not just advertising to tenants or buyers, but also a lot of the people we work with use investors as well, I think.

David:
Yeah.

Jasper:
So, being able to show an investor, a new investor, especially why should he be going with us as a property company, being able to have that visual evidence behind is really good.

David:
Like anything, whether it's marketing, whether it's weddings, whether it's property, at the end of the day, what we are doing is we're selling a dream. And you want to be able to look at those photos, look at that video and go, "Oh, my God, that's the place for me."

Jasper:
I think when we're photographing, when we're videoing, 360-ing, and the HMOs in particular, because we're so experienced, we know now what to look for, what certain developers are looking for. Some are very, how would you say, they've got a good vision in their head of what they want see on the photos. So, when we work with those clients who are doing regular builds or renovations, we know how to approach their property, which is good.

David:
We've done photos and videos for the absolute top people in the industry. And what's happened is these people do a lot of master classes and workshops, so a lot of their students all come to us and go, "Right, and we want it exactly like the master did it." So, we tend to be replicating what we've done at the top all the way down now.

Jasper:
That's it. Just bringing in-

David:
Rinse and repeat.

Jasper:
...top quality

David:
Yeah. Just keep the quality right up there and they'll keep coming back.

Jasper:
So, thank you, Dave, for coming on and having a chat with me. Hope you, the audience at home, on your laptops, on the tube, wherever you may be watching this, have learned a lot about property photography and maybe thinking about video and photo, 360 for your next development.

David:
Yeah. So, you on the next show.

Jasper:
Brilliant. I'm Jasper from Yellow Glove Productions, and thank you very much for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye, for now.