Fstoppers Real Estate and Architecture Photography Tutorial With Mike Kelley

Each year Patrick and I work on one extremely large project. Two years ago we created The Art Behind The Headshot with Peter Hurley. Last year we finished our 14 hour tutorial on how to become a wedding photographer. In 2013 we teamed up with Mike Kelley to produce what I believe is the best resource available on How To Photograph Real Estate, Architecture, and Interiors.

The creation of this tutorial
Patrick and I film, direct, edit, and fund these project ourselves. Creating an almost 8-hour long tightly edited tutorial as a team of 2 is not an easy task and that is why we have only been creating 1 per year. As you can imagine we are very picky about who we team up with because we don't want to waste 6 months to a year of our lives creating something that nobody will be interested in. That being said, choosing to do this "DVD" (actually a digital download) with Mike Kelley was an easy decision. In only 3 years, Mike has has come up with a signature shooting, lighting, and post production style that has made him incredibly successful. In just a few years, Mike went from shooting cheap real estate interiors to working for a variety of commercial clients across the country and internationally.

Mike is a leader in his field
Our DVD with Peter Hurley was successful because he was one of the leaders (if not the leader) in the headshot photography world. Mike is also a leader in his genre of photography. For the last couple of years he has been producing fantastic articles on Fstoppers about his architecture and real estate photography, the history of architectural photography, and of course articles about techniques and workflow. Over this time period his work has been getting more impressive, and his style has become more recognizable with each job.

We knew that filming something like this was going to be pretty complicated and time consuming so we decided to fly Mike down to Charleston for 3 weeks to film everything. We ended up booking Mike 3 different multi-million dollar homes to shoot plus 2 of the most famous restaurants in Charleston. We wanted to cover a little bit of everything including commercial work, architectural work, and simple real estate jobs as well.

There is nothing like this on the market
When I first moved to Charleston and began my wedding photography career, I also shot real estate during the week for extra cash. I've bought the books, I've seen the videos, and I can tell you that there is not very much educational information out there about this stuff. Most of the available information is about using lights, or keeping your vertical lines straight. This information may be helpful to those people who have never shot a picture of a house before but it will not help you take your photography to a world class level. It was really exciting for me to film this project because even though I photograph homes for years, I learned an incredible amount from Mike over those 3 weeks. I've used Photoshop professionally for 9 years now, and I learned so many things about Photoshop I never knew simply by watching Mike retouch each of his images (all included in this video).

Designed for all skill levels
As the directors of this tutorial it was our job to map out the chapters of the video, and one of the hardest parts was getting Mike to slow down and explain everything from a basic level, so that experts as well as those who are completely new to architecture photography can easily follow along. As with most professionals at Mike's level, they are so advanced they sometimes have a hard time explaining their craft to those who are not on their same level. But at the same time we also didn't want this to become just a simple video with real estate photography tips. I'm happy to say that we feel we accomplished our goal of creating a very balanced video that begins with the basics of gear, photoshop, and the business, and quickly brings you up to Mike's incredible level of detail and expertise.

Our best tutorial to date
Patrick and I have been editing this video for the last 4 months and it's a huge relief to finally have it finished. I'm also quite confident in saying that this is the best tutorial we have ever made. We've heard what you liked and disliked about our last 2 and we took all of that into account when we made "Where Art Meets Architecture." At the end of the day this video's success has little to do with us though. Mike Kelley is the one who made this workshop what it is. His incredible talent and technique speaks for itself in every one of his pictures. If you have any interest in taking better images of real estate or architecture, and you are struggling to find helpful information on the subject, give this video a shot. I can guarantee you that this will take your work to the next level, or as always, we will happily give you your money back. To learn more about everything this tutorial includes click here.