Scenes worth shooting

CityLiving: Getting the best home photos can be hard, says Edel Morgan

Estate agents are sometimes accused of using photographic trickery to turn Irish skies an unnatural shade of blue and conservatories into atriums, but you rarely hear anyone talking about the warts-and-all school of property photography.

When looking at a brochure for a house, did you ever wonder why the photo shoot went ahead with a filthy skip in the driveway or decomposing cardboard boxes in the back garden?

Vendors might be bombarded with advice to make-over, stage and declutter their homes before putting them on the market, but there are still quite a few who prefer not to mess with their natural habitat - and, it appears, photographers who are willing to accommodate them.

A random sample of brochures on my desk shows an interesting cross-section of take-me-as-you-find-me photography. A bedroom shot features a wardrobe with a door off its hinges and wallpaper rolls sticking out. Another bedroom has the curious addition of a hard hat and builders' boots stacked on a shoe rack in the middle of the floor and an ironing board propped up against the wall.

An otherwise very presentable Ranelagh property hides its original cast-iron fireplaces behind a pair of electric heaters and has plastic bags stuffed under the dressing table. A tea towel is wedged in the oven door.

Another brochure for a Ballsbridge property smacks of the amateur at large. In an attempt to highlight the feature window in the sittingroom, it appears the photographer went down on his hunkers to take the shot - with the result the floor looks like it has subsided. Another brochure has two pictures of a parched garden with a rusty washing line taken from different perspectives - as if one wasn't enough.

While you might save money taking the snaps yourself, if you don't know what you're doing it can cost you dearly in the long run. Dodgy lighting and camera angles that look like the work of a contortionist are dead-giveaways, and they won't do your property any favours.

There is also the silk purse out the sow's ear mentality. Attempts by the owner of a Chapelizod house to dickey up a bleak terrace with a sad plastic chair and a fern serves only to highlight the desolation of it all.

Top of the brochure faux-pas are TVs that dwarf sittingrooms, giant satellite dishes to the front of a house and an overload of trinkets and family photographs on the mantelpiece and socks under the bed. Ugly gym equipment, childrens' toys strewn everywhere and washing on the balcony can also be off-putting.

It can be difficult to strike the right balance. While the owner of a Milltown apartment obviously made an effort to declutter - the result is Spartan and unwelcoming - the sole is adornment an ash tray on the table. The owners of a house off Malpas Street in Dublin 8 got it just right. The house is tidy but cosy with pristine bedlinen, flowers and fruit bowls that somehow don't look stagy. An open door from the sittingroom ushers the eye to the garden.

Too much effort can be as bad as no effort at all. One Dublin 4 apartment drowns in a sea of plush fabrics and has a filmy negligee draped across a bed. One of the cardinal rules of property photography should be to lock away anything you wouldn't want your mother to see. No-one needs to see your nightdress.