I am a professional RE photographer and virtual tour provider at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia. Recently, we have suffered a bit of a drought and everyone's grass is looking pretty bad. Two months ago however, the yards were gorgeous. I am totally guilty of adjusting the color/saturation of the grass to make it appear more green or turning the saturation up on the flower bed to make the flowers look more colorful. Living and working on a lake, we are constantly dealing with rising and falling water levels. When the water levels fall, there is a red stain (we have red clay for dirt here in VA) on the rock(riprap) on the shorelines. When the lake is full, no color is visible, so I don't hesitate to desaturate the red stain on the rocks. We also suffer from discoloration of the water just after a rain. I will not try to make the water look a color that it won't ever be (caribbean blue for instance), but leaving it a murky red does not accurately represent the property either. I have lowered the saturation on an ugly bedspread, cloned out the neighbors dog that would not get out of my way, and removed water and leaves from hottub/pool covers and driveways.
I won't clone out permanent fixtures such as power lines or the neighbors house...but I WILL attempt to take the shot without including them. I have also been asked to remove or smudge out expensive artwork or personal photos.
For security purposes, I shoot around or smudge alarm systems and their components (no one looking at a virtual tour or listing photos needs to know where cameras or sensors are), but I will cut out and layer in an image of the security sign on the opening photo to let people know that this property does have a security system.
The question is, where do we draw the line. I can say that with a couple of good rains, the grass will not be brown anymore. Someone else might take that to another level by saying, 'with some grass seed, topsoil, and water, this yard would have grass...so I am going to add it.'
As I mentioned above, the dirt here in VA is mostly red clay. Therefore, any thin areas in the grass jump out at you. Is it okay to fill in the balding areas? Is it okay to fix the urine burnt grass from the neighbors dog?
ALWAYS and NEVER are two words that do not work well in the line of work we are in. I follow one rule when it comes to editing my RE photography. That rule is very simple...If I can't defend it, I won't do it. It has been brought up in many discussions here and other places that guidelines should be put into place saying what we as photographers have the right to alter. It would be wonderful if we could all say that we would not do anything dishonest or shady, but the fact is that someone will always break the rules (even the unwritten ones).
What are your thoughts? What edits have you done, and what is your defensive for making those decisions. Have you been asked to edit something and said no? What was your reason for denying that request?
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