I’m giddy right now.

Actually giddy.

Smiling like a fool, probably blushing, and giggling like a child.

The long-time readers know that one of my absolute favourite themes in MLS Musings is agents or photographers capturing themselves in photos.

There’s just nothing worse, is there?

Wait, don’t answer that.  Especially not in the context of MLS Musings, because then we open the door to agents taking actual photos of their computer screen, and using that JPG in the listing, or worse.

But no matter what’s the most egregious MLS-related sin an agent can make, taking photos with themselves in them is my fave.  We all have a fave, don’t we?

This week’s edition of MLS Musings is going to highlight some of the best I’ve seen in a while, and as we go through the pics, it almost turns into a game; one that I actually played with my daughter Maya, who is a little more than 2-years-old.  She loves sitting on my lap in my office and trying to press buttons on the laptop or click the mouse, and rather than let her muck around and risk her deleting something, I try to keep her busy.

So the other day, as I was going through these photos, I told her, “Maya, can you see the man in the photo?”  And we went through them.  Some of them are really, really tough.

We’ll start with this one:

My favourite part about this one is that the guy leans his body out of the frame because he knows he might capture his own reflection, but then he doesn’t do anything about it when he realizes that his efforts went to waste.

He’s also holding a large bag, which he could have put down for two seconds, if he wasn’t busy rushing out of this condo as fast as possible because he’s a lazy bum Realtor who provides awful service.

Here he is again, and it looks like he found a place for that bag…

Look at him lean back to try and get the entire room in the frame of his…………..iPhone…

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Here’s another agent for which zero F’s were given:

The camera looks orange too.

Is it possible that’s a disposable camera?  Maybe he had an extra under-water camera from his last trip down south, and decided to use it to shoot photos of somebody’s largest investment?

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This agent tried a little harder:

Maya found that one.

“Daddy – his hand!  Maya see his hand!”

Oh yeah, so Maya doesn’t say “I” or “me” or “mine.”  She talks about herself in the third person narrative.

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Here’s an agent that made the effort to capture the bathroom at the right angle, but then failed at editing:

Actually, there’s a decent lens on that camera.  Maybe this is a “professional” photographer who’s as bad at his job as many agents are at theirs?

FYI – Maya got this one.  It took her a while.

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Maya did not get this one, however.

And through a decade of MLS Musings, and probably hundreds of examples of agents/photographers capturing themselves in images, I think this is among the least obvious:

Did you see it?

It’s tough, I know.  I just showed this to two people on my team, and they didn’t get it either.

I’m not going to tell you.  You have to look harder.

I’ll give you a hint, there’s slightly less of the agent/photographer in that photo, than there is of me in this recent wedding photo:

Okay, if you didn’t see it, then click on the photo and it’ll open up a new window with the photo in full size.

Seriously, it’s almost creepy.

It reminds me of that scene in Sixteen Candles when Anthony Michael Hall is under the table:

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Even luxury homes are akin to photographer errors, as shown below…

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This photo contains two of my favourite themes on MLS Musings: Realtors in the photo, and brutal pillar-placement:

I know, it’s only an elbow showing on the right side of the mirror, but it still shows a professional didn’t take the picture.

Seriously though – that pillar!!  Who buys these places?

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What do you notice about this photo array?

Well, the photos suck.  Six in total, three of empty rooms, and two of the same damn toilet.

But that’s not it.

There’s more.

For this, you need to see a close-up of the first photo:

Amazing.

There’s two things this could be:

1) A photo taken through the window of a car, by somebody that didn’t do the window down.  You can see the roof of the car at the top – the black line.
2) A photo of somebody’s computer screen, offering another explanation for the mesh-like, pixel effect.

Just, unreal.

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And last but certainly not least, I don’t even know what to say about this one:

I mean………………………..great living room, right?

Surprisingly, I did not go into the bedroom.

I’m not sure why.

It just didn’t feel all that inviting.