Photography 101 for Home Inspectors | Why are home inspection photos so important?

Photography 101 for Home Inspectors, Why are home inspection photos so important?

Seriously do your report photos SUCK! Are they dark, fuzzy or over exposed? Listen to this podcast to learn how to improve your photos.

In this episode John talks about why home inspection photos are so important even after the inspection. John also talks about how to take better photos on site to keep the home inspection report writing process going without slowing you down later. 

Have you been accused of damaging a part of the property you inspected and had no defense except for ( It wasn't Me!) defense? Taking photos of the entire property can help minimize this issue and help you divert a potential claim or accusation from the seller, buyer or realtors.

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home? Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast welcome to Home Inspection authority podcast with me, John laforme. Are you a homebuyer, a realtor, or maybe a home inspector? If you are, then this podcast is definitely for you. So let's get right into some straight talk about home inspections. All right, everybody, welcome back to the podcast, John here. And today I want to talk about photography 101. For Home inspectors, attention home inspectors Did you know you're actually photographers as well? quite confident a lot of you guys out there struggle with your photos for your reports to make them look as good as they can. And maybe you're, you know, maybe you're spending a lot of time correcting photos, because you didn't take the pictures right in the first place. So let's get into this. So So why are your home inspection photos so important? Have you ever heard the saying that a picture is worth 1000 words. I couldn't agree more with the saying. I can easily forget what a house look like when a client calls me to discuss it because I've inspected 10 or more homes since the one they're talking about. But as soon as I look at a photo of the house, bam, I remember almost everything about the house in a split second. Photos really help with remembering important things. This is why taking good photos is so important. Remember, your photos are your visual documentation of the condition of the property at the time of the visual inspection. Try to remember that so gathering as much information on the property is what we're trying to do. But you also want to document the property very well. Because your photos play a key role in your final inspection report, which is what you're being paid for. Your clients need to understand what they're looking at in your photos. So your photos need to be the right exposure and in focus. Can the photos you take on site also be used to get you out of a jam? Absolutely. How do you defend yourself from a claim or an accusation that you damage the property somehow a photo photos of what's probably going to save your ass every single time. For example, I've been called in the past, from Realtors on the buying side and on the listing side saying hey, you know what, we noticed this damage in a bathtub. Did you miss it? I'm like, Well, let me you know, let me pull up the property file and look at all my photos and then look at the report. And I'll get back to you. So you know, of course they tell me which bathroom they're talking about. And then I go into my photos, my backup pictures. And I clearly have a great photo of the bathtub and there's no hole in the bathtub is no damage to it. So apparently what happened is somebody came in after me probably put a ladder in the bathtub to work on the ceiling or something or the shower enclosure and damaged it and didn't say anything. So the first person that calls me asking me if I damaged it or if I missed it. So after I looked through my photos, I find the picture I send it over and I never hear from again. So I just diverted a possible claim right there. So it's really important that you take tons of pictures when you're on site. I mean, it's just a digital photo, it doesn't cost anything to develop it just go ahead and take a shot snap, snap, snap, just keep snapping photos as you walk around the property. Cya, cover your ass. Okay, take 45 So let's talk about how to make you a better photographer during your home inspections. Okay, so you got to remember the sun is much more powerful than any camera flash. So with this in mind, you always want to have the sun behind you. When you take in any photos. If you shoot in the direction of the sun, if your subject is in the direction of the sun and you take a picture, this subject is always going to be dark, which means you're always going to have to adjust the exposure on that photo later, which is what we're trying to avoid here in this podcast teach you how to take better photos on site so it's not going to work on every every condition or every property, but this will help you minimize how many pictures you need to correct So I always take photos with the sun behind you always remember that. Okay, interiors. When you walk into a house, turn on as many lights as possible in each room before you start taking your pictures. The more light the better the photo less light, the more problems you're going to have with your photo. So if you walk into a home and all the blinds are closed, and there's no light source coming in from the outside, take a few minutes on, you know, open up the blinds, turn on, make sure all the lights are on, like I mentioned, and then take your photos, you'll have a much better chance of getting a good photo. Now if you go into a room that has no window or light source, or anything like that. Well then you want to just take your flashlight and bounce it off the ceiling, and then take your pictures, it will help. Remember the ambient light from opening up a window blind is very powerful. But if you open up that blind and you shoot towards the blind, you picture is going to look dark because once again, the sun is producing that ambient light. And it's more powerful than you flash. So put your back to the window and then take your pictures when the blinds are open. That ambient light is very powerful and it really brightens up the room and you'll see that in your pictures if you try that. Okay, so if you're inspecting an attic or a crawlspace I highly suggest you put on a headlamp that with your flashlight and your camera flash will increase your amount of light in the attic of the crawlspace which will then help you create much better photos. I do this every day. And it works for me every day, a nice powerful headlamp, powerful flashlight and a good camera with a good flash built into it. And you're all set. It's all you need. So as far as a good headlamp I definitely recommend the pencil brand at SAP P as in Paul, he is an Edward T as in Tom Z as in Zebra Ellison Larry. And the model is the NAO plus performance headlamp, great grade headlamp. It is pricey, I believe was about 160 bucks. It's got three lights on it, it actually dims when you're looking at something up close, so it doesn't over expose it. And it brightens when it when it recognizes it's in darkness. So it's a really cool light and you can use it for other stuff besides Home Inspections like if you go mountain biking or you're out walking late at night in the dark, you can use it for multiple things. So those are some really good tips for you to help you take better photos. So you may ask what should you be taking photos of I say everything. For example, if you're in the bathroom, you want to take a wide shot before you walk into the bathroom to establish which bathroom it is. And then you want to take a picture of the countertop and the sink and the faucet so one picture of that will take care of looking at the faucet looking at the countertop, looking at the sink. Take a picture of the wall outlet to see if it's a GFCI or not. Take a picture of the lighting take a picture of the ceiling, take a picture of the toilet, take pitches behind the toilet, mainly the water supply valve and then open up the cabinets under the sink take a good wide shot of that establishing well maybe the you know maybe that underneath that sink is full of personal belongings and you can't see the pipes. Or you know if you can see the pipes, take pictures of the pipes take pictures of the water supply pipes and the shutoff valves. Take a picture under the sink, you know pointing up towards the sink from underneath. Take a picture of the drain pipe just to keep taking photos. It'll come in really handy later if you needed those photos to refresh your memory on something that was going on with the house. So if you're taking pictures of the bathtub, you want to take a front shot of the front side of the bathtub you know which is facing the toilet typically, and then take a picture inside the bathtub. Front and back and show the sides of it and just make sure it's a good picture. And if you if it's kind of a dark room, use your flashlight. Bounce your flashlight off the ceiling and that'll give you more light to take a better photo, a clearer photo. Same thing with underneath the cabinets. I want to point this out. It's real easy to take a bad photo under a bathroom or kitchen cabinet countertop. It's just like a cave in there. Sometimes it's a really dark cabinet. It's just dark. So if you don't have a good flashlight, you're not helping yourself. You'd have a good flashlight. Take your flashlight, stick it on. It's on end, shine it up towards the top of the cabinet. And that'll that'll create what's called a fill light. And that fill light will help you take a better photo. So understand the more light you have, the better your photos look, the less light, the worst day look. So if you're taking, if you're using, let's say an iPad, for your inputting on your software, well, they don't have a flash. Well, maybe they do now, but the one I have doesn't have a flash. So I have to use my flashlight as a fill light. So that those pictures don't come out blurry, they come out sharp and clear. That's a very important thing to remember. If you take the time to take the picture correctly, on site, you don't have to go home and fix it later. Every time you have to fix something it that just takes more time out of your day. So if you want to be efficient, take the time to do it on site. And then by capturing a really good photo, while you're there is way better than having to go home and Photoshop it to make it look right. Because don't forget your customers need to see what you're talking about. And if they can't make out your photo, what's the point of taking it? Okay, so what photos do you take of a kitchen? Well, I always take a nice establishing shot, which is a wide shot, showing what the kitchen looks like in a wide format, then you want to take a close up of the sink, you want to take just like in the bathrooms, you want to take pitches under the sink, the plumbing, the condition of the cabinet underneath. And then as far as the the range goes the gas, if it's a gas range, you know, turn on the burners, take a picture of the burners working, turn on the oven, take a picture with your either your temperature gun or your thermal gun that the ovens actually working. Because it'll show you you know, it's putting out heat. A lot of times ovens don't work. So it's a good idea to turn on the oven and take a photo of oven actually working. Because I've had calls on that before to hey, you know the ovens not working while it was working when I was there. Here's a picture to prove it. So these things come in handy. I can't express it enough that how important the picture is when you get a call to now you can defend yourself. As far as the microwave the rangehood goes, I just take pictures I have inside of the microwave outside of the microwave, I turn on the lighting, turn on the fan. Take picture of the cabinet above the microwave to make sure there's ducting installed to vent out the range exhaust. And as far as anything else in the kitchen dishwasher, I typically open the dishwasher, take a picture inside before I run it just to make sure there's nothing in there that shouldn't be in there. Sometimes you'll find standing water in a dishwasher, that's probably an indication it's not working. As far as Exteriores go. When I'm doing the exterior of a house, I've taken pictures of each wall of the house, I take probably two or three pictures of each wall of the house. If I see pipes coming through the walls, I take pictures of that I take pictures of the gas meter, gas piping, plumbing. I take pictures of all the windows. I take pictures of hose bibs. The soffit areas and the rain gutters and so forth. I take pictures of everything. So it'll come in handy later. One of the benefits want to point out as to taking a lot of photos. I mean, literally in the past I've had to do this where I got to a property was way out in a no cell phone service area. I forgot to upload my software to my my iPad. And I was like gosh, yet what do I do? So I literally just walked the property inspected it. As I'm walking around. I'm inspecting each thing I'm supposed to be inspecting but I took a lot of photos. And I actually was able to build my report when I get back to the house. Because I had all the photos I needed it reminded me of everything I saw and it saved me from you know having to go back there and doing this over. So pictures come in handy for lots of reasons. So let's talk about inspecting roofing, you know If you can't get on the roof, I use a drone to take pictures of the roof. Now I know what the roof looked like when I was there. If I can get on the roof, it's just like a composition shingle or roofing material, I'm going to get up there and walk around. I'm going to take pictures of each side of the roof and take pictures of all the penetrations pipe stack flashing skylights, where the chimney meets the roof material flashings and so forth. I'm going to take pictures of all that. And back to plumbing, if I'm going under a house in a crawlspace or in an attic, I'm going to take pictures of all the drain pipe all the water supply pipe, I'll be taking pictures of the foundation, floor framing systems, so forth any electrical issues. And then as far as the attic goes, take pictures of the roof framing penetrations coming through the roof if there's any staining around there. So take pictures of everything. So I'm trying to say the pitch, take pictures of the installation, whether it's there or not, if there's no installation, take a picture if there is an installation, take a picture. Take pictures of everything, just cover your ass. You'll be happy to later. And as far as interiors, you know room to room bedrooms, I take pictures of smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, ceilings, walls, floors, closets, closet ceilings, a lot of times there's popcorn ceilings, inside closet ceilings, and older homes. And take pictures of supply registers and the rooms and the furnace, the water heater, all the components of the water heater, all the components of the furnace. HVAC ducting that's visible. Another point I want to make when you're using your flashlight to brighten up a situation like under a cabinet or in a room. Don't shine your flashlight on the object you're trying to take a picture of it just gonna make it look bad. Use your flashlight as a bounce light fill light. So bounce it off the wall or put the flashlight next to what you're trying to shine. Next to what you're trying to take the picture of that way it'll come up clean and look really really good. Okay, so what kind of camera should you use? Well, the best camera I've found for doing home inspections over the years is a a waterproof and shockproof camera. So Nikon Coolpix makes a really good one. I've been using that one for a long time. It is waterproof. If you're doing pool inspections, it comes in really handy. I take a lot of underwater pictures with it, when I'm inspecting pools. If it's raining out, it's a great camera to have, because you're not going to damage it if you drop it in the water. So there's a lot of good points to have in this camera. It's about 400 bucks, well worth the money. Because it's always going to be reliable. So I've dropped that our proofs by the way, I've dropped it off roofs, I've dropped it out of the attic access in a hallway. Trust, I've dropped that thing so many times. Sometimes the shuttle will stop working. But once you just power it down and power back up, it works fine again. So very durable, very reliable camera. That's the Nikon Coolpix that's the one I use. And especially if you're like a East Coast home inspector on the East Coast and dealing with the winter and the rain and the snow, you definitely want a waterproof camera. You don't want to use your iPhone in the rain, because if you drop that into a puddle outside, it's done. And that's an expensive repair right there. So I wouldn't recommend that. I only use you know my iPhone for certain things. And that's in a dry environment, I wouldn't recommend using that in a wet area. I typically take about 300 to 500 photos on any typical inspection. If it's a much bigger property, well, obviously there'll be more, but that's typically how many I take. So, now that I've taken all these photos, what are we supposed to do with them? Well, you want to create a property file on that particular home. So I would label the file on your computer, the complete property address, so it's easy to find later if you need to, and then upload to a cloud storage system and a secondary desktop backup. I always recommend doing two backups in two different locations. That way if one gets damaged or lost or stolen, or vice versa, you have a backup so it's really a good idea to do that. Okay, so here's some key takeaways from the episode. I hope you caught on to one by a good camera with a good flash recommend a waterproof style camera with a built in flash. To learn how to take better photos on site three, sleep better knowing you have proper photo documentation to defend yourself with in the event of a claim or an accusation from a client or a realtor. For better photos equals better reports, which equals more business for your company. Get the picture