Here are a few reasons why you need a professional photographer 

Light Levels : A professional will see what an amateur won’t, he can deal with light levels. How often do you look at a photograph of a house interior on Trade Me, where the windows are just white boxes? This is what a professional calls ‘blown out’ and it is because an amateur doesn’t have the expertise to cope with dark corners and light streaming through the window, at the same time.

Vignettes : A professional sees shots everywhere. Unlike an amateur, who will generally just get one wide-angled shot of every room, a professional will see a creative shot in the turn of a banister, or across a garden feature towards the sunshine. He is trained to look for the shots where they occur, not snap what’s there.

Ambience : A professional will add ambience. He knows when to turn lamps on, and when to rely on the sun coming through the window instead. S/he is adept at capturing atmosphere like a roaring fire or flickering candle.

Time : He has allocated a certain amount of time for the shoot, often several hours, and will walk round the property and plan the shoot carefully in his head. He takes account of where the light falls, and its path over the course of the shoot.

Exceptional results : A professional will deliver an exceptional finished result. It can easily take almost as long to edit a shoot as it does to take the photographs in the first place. White balance, levels, saturation, sharpness, and lots more all have to be accounted for and enhanced so that the finished image is practically a work of art.