My first rental listing photos came back and I am not sure they are doing the work I needed them to do

The mismatch between your description and the photos is real, and it will cost you if the photos are the first thing a prospective tenant sees, which they almost always are.

On whether it is a brief problem or a photographer problem: probably both, but the brief is the part you can control next time. Handing over an address with no direction is common and understandable for a first shoot. Photographers who specialize in real estate marketing will sometimes ask what the selling story is. Many do not. Giving them a written shot list, even five bullet points, changes what you get back.

For this listing specifically, I would think about it this way. Five exterior shots of a driveway and a neighbor's fence are not earning their place. A single shot of the street with mature trees, or the park two blocks away, anchors the walkability story you already wrote. Those two frames could be shot on a phone on a bright morning and they would do more work than what you have now.

The question of whether to reshoot comes down to how much your vacancy costs per week. If the property sits empty at, say, $1,800 a month, that is roughly $415 a week. A targeted reshoot of four or five frames, or even good phone photography of the street and park, is probably worth it before you get two weeks of thin inquiries and then wonder.

One thing worth knowing: the description and the photos need to tell the same story. When they contradict each other, a prospective tenant notices even if they cannot name why. Your description is doing the right job. The photos are currently telling a different story.

What does your listing platform show as views so far, and have you had any inquiry messages come in yet? That would help think through the timing question.

Five exterior shots of a driveway is a brief problem, not a photographer problem, because no photographer on a $185 job is going to invent a shot list without one. That said, the Whittier angle is fixable without a reshoot. A late afternoon shot of the park two blocks away costs you nothing but twenty minutes and an iPhone, and in a listing you can drop it in as the last image, label it "2 blocks to Hawthorne Park" or whatever it is, and the school district family scrolling at 9pm will feel it immediately. The beige living room is harder to fix with angle alone, so I would not waste a reshoot on that. What I would actually want to know is what platform you are listing on, because if it is Zillow and you have the description copy front-loaded correctly, the photos are doing less decision-making than you think for the tenant type you are chasing.

Wait two weeks and you will know exactly which problem it is.