New 360 Virtual Tour-642 Magnoni in College Place WA

This is the latest 360 virtual tour that I just uploaded for Trisha Bush at Preferred Properties Land and Homes in Walla Walla Washington.  An ultra modern design where you will find modern appliances throughout the home.  The living space is very open providing complete access to the kitchen, dining area and even to the open loft upstairs.  I thought the loft could be a perfect office for the person that does their work from home.

Just click on the picture above to get to the virtual tour window or go to:  Virtual Tour of College Place Home.

Walla Walla is still a great little town to work and play in and is a thriving wine enthusiasts Mecca.  You will find this home in a newer development in the neighboring town of College Place Washington.  Traditionally, College Place was developed around the Seventh Day Adventists and still adheres to some of the Adventist traditions.  You will find it a friendly town to all residents and visitors.  Take advantage of small town living where you can easily become friends with your neighbors. The schools are still a reasonable size, where your child can receive a great education.  In fact, College Place is home to the famous Walla Walla University!

Trisha Bush of Preferred Properties Land and Homes can be reached at (509) 525-4040 if you would like to contact her regarding this newer home.  You may also visit her website for some great online search tools that will direct you to any number of properties in the Walla Walla area that Trisha lists.

Dean Harman

Presenting 360 Virtual Tours and Internet Marketing of Real Estate, Business and Hospitality Facilities throughout the Pacific Northwest.

wwtourguide@bmi.net

541-938-7079 Office

541-215-2884 Cell

 

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Preferred Properties New Website Created by Dean Harman

Preferred Properties Land and Homes owner, Trisha Bush, recently hired us to create and publish a new website for the Walla Walla Realty office.

I was, of course, more than happy that they could put their trust into my website designing skills.

The website had to be very user friendly, conform to the Preferred Properties Land and Homes color scheme and, for my own requirements, had to be built entirely without the use of those horrible tables that so many HTML authors love to use.  The code should conform to strict standards and be designed and controlled by nothing else but CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

I wanted the website to hold a page reserved for our Virtual Tours that we had already completed and to be expandable for any new virtual tours and video tours that would soon populate it.

A challenge in itself to use nothing but CSS, I soon found out that a Realtor website had to also include the popular MLS search functions.  It wasn’t long before I realized that would require much more than a simple link to some far away MLS service.  It took me many weeks to learn all the ropes of MLS and IDX search functions, how they work and how to get them to load up properly without annoying prospective clients.

Trisha Bush and her staff were more than patient with me as I slogged my way through the learning curve.  More than once I thought I had chomped into more than I could swallow.  But, somehow, hard work and late night sessions in front of my computer came up with a pretty nice website.

As I peeked into other Walla Walla Real Estate websites, I noticed more than a few Real Estate professionals were lacking updated websites and especially noticed the absence of good, interactive virtual tours!  The door is wide open for improvement among Realtors to market their properties and I will soon be visiting local Walla Walla Realtors to show them how our Virtual Tours differ from what they may be used to.

This Interactive Virtual Tour is of a home in College Place Washington that was built by local Walla Walla builder Jeff Moeller.  The home was featured in last years Parade of Homes for the Walla Walla area and I think the home has sold!

Click on the picture or the link to see the virtual tour of 724 Bedford Loop

 http://rtvpix.com/RE-7362-033AJK-01

Link to Preferred Properties Land and Homes

http://preferredww.com

Dean Harman

wwtourguide@bmi.net

541-938-7079 Office

541-215-2884 Cell

 

Ryan and Darlene Engagement Portraits

We photographed Ryan and Darlene’s wedding engagement portraits Saturday morning on the Whitman College here in Walla Walla.  Our engagement portrait sessions are designed not only to get some great photography of newly engaged couples, but to get a chance to work closely with a couple to sort of give them a taste of what their wedding portraits will be like.

Obviously, if we all are getting along great and the couple is having fun, then it just makes everyone feel comfortable being photographed.

Getting in up close and personal helps create a fun atmosphere and really takes care of any “nerves” and unnatural expressions!

A kiss under a tree ends the perfect morning portrait session.

For more pictures of this great couple, visit our website:

www.harmanportraits.com and go to our “proofing” page!

Dean Harman

Harman Portrait Photography

541-938-7079

e-mail: dean@harmanportraits.com

Website: www.harmanportraits.com

Get huge traffic to your blog from www.alphainventions.com

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Virtual Tour of 1840 Fern Walla Walla WA

This is a Virtual Tour we completed of a custom built home in Walla Walla back in January of this year. I wanted to give this client a little marketing boost for spring so a new Craigslist ad was created and sent on up to Seattle Washington.

Craigslist ad link: http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/reo/1121433308.html (real estate – by owner)

Interactive Virtual Tour link: (click on picture below to view the tour!)

1840 Fern Ave. Walla Walla WA

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Walla Walla Wedding Dream Team

It has been a long hard winter here on the Walla Walla River.  Snow, rain, sleet, wind, I thought it would never stop.  Then it got nice for awhile in January but all that bad weather came again.

But, this week I saw robins jumping around my lawn so that means only one thing.  Spring in wine country is finally here!

Naturally, when spring is here, that means people are starting to really take seriously and plan for their upcoming summer and fall weddings here in Walla Walla!

I just thought it would be nice to put a good word in for my personal wedding vendor friends out there and provide you with some links to their websites.

Sometimes it is really hard to find the right vendor for your wedding so I put together a “Dream Team” of vendors that I can personally vouch for.

These people all do a superb job and whether you are having a wedding at a Walla Walla winery or your backyard, they all take weddings seriously so you can defiantly trust each one.

I call it the “Dream Team” because if you were to hire all of these wedding vendors you would have a Dream Wedding with no worries!  Just let us do all the fussing about.

Of course, I would be happy to do your wedding photography and I hope you will give me a call, but for now, here is the “Wedding Dream Team” at your service!

Call this a little gift from HarmanPortraits.com.

Favorite Venue:

Basel Cellars Estate Winery (www.baselcellars.com)

Join their wine club so you can use their facility!  The most outrageous place to get married…and wine?!! You gotta be kidding.  A rockin summer party! Your guests will never forget your wedding.

The reception area at the Basel Cellars pool

Basel Cellars wedding venue

Photos from Basel Cellars Estate Winery and Resort www.baselcellars.com

Favorite flower lady:

Flowers 4 Rent (www.flowersforrent.com)

Norita Dahlin has the eye for the perfect combinations of flowers.  And the best part?  You rent them!  They never fade in the hot sun and they won’t drip on your dress because, although you could never notice, her flowers are made from acrylic but they feel like the real thing.  She is such a gracious person, I bet if you asked her really nicely to send you a sample, she would!

Artificial flowers from Flowers For Rent in Walla Walla

A beautiful bridal boquet from FlowersForRent.com

Pictures of artificial flowers from www.flowersforrent.com

Favorite Food guy:

Graze Catering in Walla Walla (www.grazeevents.com)

OK, talk about a great spread!  You can smell the chicken cooking on the BBQ while you’re watching the wedding!  Your guests can’t wait to get in line at the reception, and isn’t that what makes a great reception?  ..The food?

I once overheard a guest at one of John Grazes catered weddings say “Man, beer and hot wings! What else could anyone want at a wedding?”  I think it was the guy in this photo wearing the snazzy blue vest who said it.  Go John and Tracy Graze!

Read about GrazeEvents catering services here.

Beer and hotwings!

Colorful entre from Graze Events Catering in Walla Walla

Pictures from www.grazeevents.com

Favorite Party Supply:

Sandys U Rent (www.SandysUrent.com)

Toni Thorne over at Sandys U Rent in Walla Walla can provide your wedding with everything, and I mean everything, from candles to napkins to linens.  She can even set you up with canopies and tents.  I have seen one of her tents that you could host a whole circus inside!  Except that it is a very elegant tent, with lights and heaters and even drapes!  You wouldn’t want to set a bunch of elephants loose in there but you could set a bunch of wedding guests loose and they would be happy as a tribe of monkeys in a bananna boat!

Tent from Sandys U Rent in Walla Walla at night wedding reception

A tent from Sandys U Rent can add elegance at any reception

Just a couple of tents that www.SandysUrent.com offers!

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New Virtual Tour by Dean Harman

724 Bedford Loop in College Place Washington

I just finished up a new interactive virtual tour for Trisha Bush at Preferred Properties in Walla Walla Washington.

This is another cool virtual tour for the Walla Walla area and can be accessed by anyone by clicking on the link below:

http://rtvpix.com/RE-7362-033AJK-01

This home is brand new and was built in 2008 by Jeff Moeller Construction in Walla Walla and was featured in the 1^st annual Walla Walla Parade of Homes by Trisha Bush.

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Video Juice – Wine Videos, Food Videos, Beer Videos & Spirit Videos

Video Juice – Wine Videos, Food Videos, Beer Videos & Spirit Videos

Posted using ShareThis

Tour the Wine Cellar

Photo tour of Basel Cellars wine cellar

A fine wine from Basel Cellars Winery in Walla Walla Washington

My nostrils were filled with the scent of oak and fermenting wine as I walked through the cellar doors into the Basel Cellars Winery. It is a scent that I have been privileged to experience many times while photographing several wine cellars in the Walla Walla Valley.

I just love that smell and it really puts me in the creative mode for capturing some great photographs.

Today’s assignment was to get another 360 degree panoramic scene added to the Basel Cellars Winery and Resort virtual tour.

I have been working on getting the tour window live and attached to the Basel Cellars website and so I am happy to get this cellar shot for the tour!

Go here…

I will have the new cellar scene all stitched together and updated within a couple of days.
Then, it will be attached to the website soon after. I can’t wait because then I can start pushing the tour to several portals giving some great exposure to Basel Cellars Winery.

As I photographed Justin Basel and Ryan Sams in their winemaker rolls there in the cellar,

Justin and Ryan work on a new vintage at Basel Cellars Winery

I realized that they really are a couple of crazy dudes that are popping out some excellent wines. I think that their youth and vibrancy will bring Basel Cellars a long way into the 21st century.

Justin Basel filling an oak wine barrel

Ryan Sams keeps an eye on the wine

Justin and Ryan are two winemakers that love their work and are not afraid to experiment in the winemaking dept.

It is going to be interesting to see what this new generation brings out of that cellar in the next 5-10 years. They have the expertise and a state of the art wine facility so be prepared to be dazzled!

While they take their rolls as winemakers for Basel Cellars Winery seriously as is evident by their present stock of premium Cabs, Syrahs and Chardonnays, I can see how working 12-15 hours in a cellar could get to a guys nerves.

Sometime, somehow the fermentation chamber has to blow! You just gotta let loose and have some fun. They’re making wine for crying out loud! It’s a liquid that people pay a lot of money for so they can celebrate something, if not just the close of a hectic day. So why do all the wine maker photos you see have to show some very serious guy standing there amongst a bunch of dusty, oak casks in a dark cave?

I think these photos are a change of pace…

Justin and Ryan guarding their stash-winecrafters at Basel Cellars

Of course, this picture was just for fun and I hope the guys had a fun day during the photos and after I left. I believe that wine or beer or even sour kraut and anything else that has a fermentation process to it, is alive and as a living, breathing entity, can “feel” the mood of it’s environment. Kind of like talking to your plants and watching them be happy.

If your wine is having a great time growing up, then I believe that has an effect on the outcome of the finished product.

Justin Basel-winecrafter

Dean Harman
www.harmanportraits.com
dean@harmanportraits.com
*- -and now- -*
Walla Walla Virtual Tours
wwtourguide@bmi.net

Property Marketing New to Harman Portraits

We have added a whole new dimension to  our photographic services as of the first of this year (2009).  After 25 plus years of photographing people and an occasional commercial job I wanted to add some new services to my camera bag.

Last summer, I found a great partner in a company called Real Tour Vision located in the great state of Michigan.  They are marketing properties for real estate agents in the Traverse City area and are using their own software to create 360° panoramic virtual tours!  I was lucky enough to be able to sign on with their company as a full fledged RTV dealer.

What this means for the Walla Walla real estate industry is that not only can I create some really awsome virtual tours for them, they can benefit from using a professional photographer to capture the homes they are representing.  No longer will a real estate agent have to use their cell phone camera to add pictures to their listings!

Of course, virtual tours are not new to the real estate marketplace.  However, what sets Harman Portraits apart from the rest of the tour providers is that we actually market the tours.  This goes way beyond just attaching a tour window to a realtor’s website.  We not only add the link to their website but we also are able to “push” the tour to several real estate portals including Googlebase.com, Yahoo.com, HomeSeekers.com, Realtor.com .

Recently, we have added  to our linking strategy.  Click these links:  Craigslist.org  and Backpage.com to see how we are using our e-flyers to advertise the properties even further! 

Here is a link to one of our FSBO tours in Walla Walla: http://rtvpix.com/RE-5338-X1DZ9P-01 

We will be using our YouTube.com channel to create video style slide shows and then embed the shows into our blogs, web articles and any other place we need  to send them.

With these tools at our disposal, we are also able to bring the technology to other businesses that want to show their facilities to the world.  Bed and Breakfasts, wineries, college campuses, the list goes on and on.

The internet is just in it’s infancy and we are only using a small part of what the potential is.  Marketing has taken a new direction in 2009 and I for one am excited about the coming years.  What new and innovative ways can a person or company use to market their business?  It boggles the mind!

Dean