Best Time for Real Estate Photos?
Make sure you’re getting the best photos possible, by choosing a time of day that best suits your listing!
You’ve been working hard to prepare your seller’s beautiful home and it’s ready for professional photos. You’ve found a photographer that your colleagues recommend and are about to pull the trigger. Scheduling the photo shoot is an impersonal process… what isn’t nowadays. So you pick a time that works for the seller.
The day of the photoshoot arrives. The photos are taken and you get the images back the next morning. The pictures aren’t bad, but something is off. You can’t put your finger on what it is. Then it hits you! The front of the property is completely covered in shadows. Your “HERO” photo, the first image a prospective buyer will see, isn’t up to snuff. It may be because the front of the house feels cold and unattractive. When instead the home should be cast in warm, inviting sunlight.
Did you know that as of January 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors, 87% of homebuyers on the internet find images to be among the most useful feature. Not to mention that homes with professional photos receive 47% higher asking prices per square foot. Therefore, it’s worth making sure the photos are as good as they can be.
So when is the best time to photograph your Real Estate listing? First, let’s assume we are just talking about normal photos; no extras allowed. Extras would be ‘add-ons’ like twilights, aerials, etc. Just standard, daytime photographs. Ready to be disappointed… IT DEPENDS! But the good news? There are only two primary factors to consider when making your decision.
Those factors are:
- Location of the Sun in the Sky
- Direction the Property Faces
The goal whenever you’re scheduling Real Estate photos is to decide what time of day the sunlight will compliment the front of the home. This is your HERO photo!
Let me show you an example! Look at these two photographs:
In the first photo, the sun is behind the photographer. The light is hitting the front of the property which gives the home a “glow”. It brightens the home and grounds it as the main subject in the photo.
In the second image the sun is behind the home. This casts a shadow over the entire front face of the property. It’s worth noting that sometimes this is unavoidable and I’ll explain why in a few paragraphs.
When a the front of a home is completely cast in shadows, it can give the photo an uninviting feeling. Here’s why:
- The front of the property is competing for space as the main subject. It takes focus off the property and puts focus on other details; cracks in driveway, grassless yard, how close the neighbor is, etc.
- It looks somewhat unnatural because of how sky edits are done. For Real Estate photos, replacing the sky keeps every photo consistent, regardless of weather conditions. Doing this also helps give better dynamic range to the photo, which will be more accurate to how our eyes see the world.
- If the front of the property is all shadows, your brain assumes the sun should be behind the house. So… a cool blue sky replacement where the sun isn’t anywhere in sight, can make the photo look imbalanced.
Knowing the ‘location of the sun’ and the ‘direction of the property’ allow you to accurately predict what time of day you should photograph a listing. But there are a few other things worth considering.
- Time of year / Seasons
- Weather
- Exceptions to the “Rules”
If you’re not looking to spend all day reading this article and just want a quick answer, look no further!
Here’s the high level guidelines:
These guidelines will steer you in the right direction about 90% of the time. Keep reading to learn how to dial it in 100% of the time.
Location of the Sun and Direction of the Property
Why does the sun location and house direction matter? Because good light makes good photographs. As a Real Estate photographer, it’s our job to make any home look good in any type of light. That’s the game! You’ve got to work with the lighting conditions available. However, being set up to win before you step foot onsite can make all the difference. That starts with choosing the best time of day for each property.
As it’s always been and will always be, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Which is great because it makes planning your photos fairly predictable. As I mentioned above in the general guideline, plan on doing your photo shoot when the light is hitting the front face of the property.
For an East facing house, you would photograph the property at some point in the morning. For a West facing house… you guessed it! The ideal time to take photos would be in the afternoon.
What about North and South facing homes? In general, the harshest light occurs when the sun is high in the sky; so mid-day. During this time shadows appear darker and the light from the sun is at it’s brightest. This gives you a very high contrast photo. See the two examples for reference.
The way to compensate for this is to have photos taken earlier in the day or later in the afternoon. The sun is softer, allowing shadows to become less intense. You might think that shadows are longer during these times, but they are much softer and therefore easier to edit into a lower contrast photograph.
Time of Year and Seasons
To go a step further I’m going to break down seasons and how the time of year affects the location of the sun in the sky. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the information high level and as it relates to photographing a property.
The earth takes an entire year to rotate around the sun. The earth is also tipped slightly on its vertical axis. If you’re based in Minnesota, then you’re in earth’s northern hemisphere. Take a look at the image BELOW and use it as a reference during these next few paragraphs. Notice which direction the earth is tipped based on the season.
NOTE ABOUT THE IMAGE BELOW: I’ve been talking about Minnesota as a point of reference. However, the image below shows the United Kingdom as the reference. It was the best image to show the point I’m trying to make. The UK is roughly the same Latitude as Minnesota, so the reference should be similar.
“Great! Why does that matter?”
It’s important because the light from the sun changes drastically between summer and winter. When it’s mid-day during a Minnesota summer, the sun is high in the sky. This is because earth’s northern hemisphere is tipped towards that giant fireball that is the sun. That’s also why summer has sweltering summer days! Because of this fact, we get more sun during the day and a more direct, harsh light. Warming us more during the summer.
In the winter, it’s the exact opposite. The sun is coming from a lower angle. Therefore, the light is not as intense in the winter and doesn’t provide as much heat or as much harsh light.
Now examine the two maps below. They show where the sun rises and sets for a specific location, on a certain day. In this example, US Bank Stadium (home of the Minnesota Vikings) is the point of interest. The yellow line indicates where the sun rises in the morning and the orange shows where the sun sets in the afternoon. The ‘yellow/orange’ line between the two shows the sun’s position at noon.
June 21st – Summer Solstice
Sunrise: 5:27 AM
Sunset: 9:03 PM
December 21st – Winter Solstice
Sunrise: 7:49 AM
Sunset: 4:34 PM
If you’re interested, the app used in this example is called Photopills. It’s a paid app but plenty of other free apps & websites that will show sun paths for specific times of the year!
The left image is June 21st, the day US Bank Stadium gets more sun than any other day of the year. The right shows December 21st. The day that gets the least amount of sunlight throughout the year.
In the summer, there is a time right away in the morning and late in the afternoon that allows a north-facing property to get sun on the front face. Controversially, a south facing house with photos at midday might not be the best time to take them because the sun is so high in the sky. This will cause hard shadows and high contrast photos.
In the winter the sun comes up way further south than US Bank Stadium. The north side of the property never gets any direct sunlight. So you won’t be able to get a photo of a home with direct light during this time of the year. Managing those expectations is important. However, during Minnesota winters, a south facing house doesn’t have a bad time to photograph a listing because the sun is always so low in the sky!
To make sure I’m not boring you to death, let’s move on. If you want a quick crash course on weather and seasons, check out this four minute video for a little more detail. Or google, “How Do Seasons Work” and watch a video with a lot of views!
Video with more details on Seasons – Click Here
Weather
Does weather play a role in your listing photos? Yes… but probably not in the way you might think. Obviously light is important, as we’ve already discussed. But because you replace the sky in Real Estate photos, it doesn’t matter if it’s cloudy, snowing, sunny, etc. Every photo will have some type of “sunny day feel”. Even if it looks like the sun just came out after a rainstorm. (The photos could be taken in the rain but still look like it’s a sun shower).
The best weather for a photoshoot? A slightly overcast day. Nothing with super dark clouds. It makes the scene look too dark. Sunny photos cast a lot of high contrast shadows. You want the clouds to create a soft-box in the sky. This keeps the scene bright but eliminates harsh shadows. However, these conditions are extremely hard to plan for outside of a couple hours.
So why am I telling you about the weather when it doesn’t matter and is hard to time? Because it’s when you usually see the “best” photos. The shadows have been almost eliminated but it’s still bright enough to light up the front of the property. This is also the best time to get a Virtual Twilight edit done. The lack of shadows match what a traditional twilight would look like. Instead of taking a high contrast scene and trying to turn it into a Virtual Twilight.
Notice the difference between a high contrast virtual twilight (left) and a low contrast virtual twilight (right). The low contrast scene looks much more natural as a virtual twilight edit. You can still see the shadows in the low contrast photo but not nearly as much.
Twilights are a whole separate topic and when I have an article or video about the subject, I’ll link it here.
However, to drive home the weather topic, here is a photo of a home with a slight overcast sky. Notice how the shadows lift enough to make a good, flat photo. Making the home the only real subject that grabs your attention!
This property is actually a north facing property with the sun behind the property. The photo was taken mid-afternoon when the sun was coming in and out of cloud cover. Notice how the lack of direct sunlight creates a nice, soft photo with less contrast.
Exceptions to the Rules
To wrap up, when do these rules not apply to a property? When your ‘HERO’ photo (first MLS Photo) isn’t going to be the front of the home. An example of this would be a lakefront property where the shoreline and great backyard are the selling features. Maybe the first photo should be a drone shot from over the lake while looking at the backyard and large windows of the home.
Situations like this are few and far between but it’s good to know when to pivot!
Thank you!
Thank you for taking time to read this article! I hope you found it useful. If you want to learn more, follow me on Instagram.
If you live in the Twin Cities and want to work together, reach out or schedule a photoshoot!