Planning to establish a digital presence of your hotel? Begin with a high-quality hotel photoshoot. Visuals play a crucial role in persuading people, and if you want visitors to visit and stay at your hotel, attract them with powerful and appealing images.
Hotel photography is the process of getting some best snaps clicked of the best locations of your hotel, uploading them online, and attracting visitors through those images. A high-quality hotel photoshoot helps establish a solid online presence and works like a charm to attract many visitors to the hotel.
In this blog post, we will help you get the hang of a hotel photoshoot and guide you with the best strategies to get you the best from that hotel photography.
What is Hotel Photoshoot?
A hotel photoshoot is the art of clicking stunning images of the hotel rooms and the facilities available in the hotel, such as the bar, pool, spa, etc. Hotel photography brings out the best features of the hotel and hotel rooms and persuades people of its high quality. Hotel photography is different from regular photography. You cannot capture the essence of the hotel room by regular photoshoots. You must adequately visualize what you want to represent through your hotel photos and how to achieve that. In other words, you need to make your hotel ready according to the theme of the hotel room photo shoot.
How often are you booking a hotel based solely on the images of the hotel present online? Many times we believe. And why not? Powerful photoshoot hotel rooms make you visualize the hotel’s essence, feel the luxury services, and enjoy the facilities available in the hotel. That’s the power of a powerful hotel photoshoot.
How To Create A Strategy For Hotel Photography
You need a perfect and practical strategy to achieve a perfect hotel photo shoot. Developing a strategy ensures you don’t miss any important elements in your hotel photoshoot.
Dive in with us to learn an effective strategy for hotel photoshoots.
Brand Familiarity
First, familiarize yourself with your brand and target audience to get a perfect hotel room photoshoot done. Is it a family-type hotel or a luxurious suite? Maybe it’s a cozy hotel with a modern touch. Identify what hotel facilities you provide and the audience most attracted to your hotel.
Also, identify what sort of facilities are highly in demand by your target audience. Your audience may be looking for a comfortable and cozy place to spend their vacations. Or they may be looking for excellent facilities like a spa, pool, bar, etc., to have a chilled time.
Shot List
Now that you know what facilities your hotel provides and your target audience, decide what sort of shots you plan to click. Prepare a list of all the shots and places you want to get clicked so you don’t miss anything.
For instance, you might want your hotel rooms, lobby, bar, spa, pool area, dining area, etc., to get clicked. Also, some shots represent whole areas while others focus on specific details.
Perfecting Photo Details
Decide the essential details you want to highlight in your hotel photos. You may highlight only the key details like comfortable beds, luxurious bars, divine dining rooms, etc., or you may want to click some general images with equal focus on key details and the interiors.
Highlighting Key Features
To get those perfect shots, you need to brainstorm your shots’ composition thoroughly. For instance, you click the hotel room with the bed on focus. Here, you can also add a side table with a lamp or a sofa set, or any other feature in your images to make it more appealing.
Lights, Style, Action
Lastly, plan what sort of lighting you need in your images. You can use natural light to get a natural and perfect look or click the hotel ambiance in warm gold light. The main aim should be to highlight the hotel’s features best and highlight the hotel’s essence to attract visitors.
Hotel Photography Guidelines and Best Practices
You need to understand that your website is like an online version of your hotel. Just as you would show off all the great things your hotel has to offer to guests who visit in person, you should also showcase them on your website. Don’t leave it up to your guests’ imagination or surprise them when they arrive. Ensure you highlight and display all the amazing things your hotel provides on your website.
To get appealing and high-quality images, follow the following hotel photography guidelines for the best results.
1. Proper pieces of equipment
Ensure that you use proper gear to get your hotel photoshoot done. Invest in high-quality gears with high-resolution sensors to capture detailed, clear, and crisp images.
You can also invest in specific camera lenses for perfect shots like wide angles, close-ups, etc. You can also use tripods to get those perfect shots.
2. Experienced photographer
Investing in experienced photographers is another critical step for getting high-quality hotel images. An experienced photographer can capture a hotel’s essence and get the perfect shots. Also, an experienced photographer can suggest or guide on how perfect shots can be captured and which locations of hotels should be clicked and how.
3. Spacious, organized, and clean room
Make sure hotel rooms and other shoot locations in the hotel are properly clean and organized. Arrange the furniture like sofa set, side tables, etc. properly. Prepare the curtains, spread the best bed cover, fluff your pillows, and get the best table linen to highlight the best hotel room features. Similarly, make every shoot location ready and tidy up.
Further, don’t clutter the shoot locations too much. Adding many things to the photo frame will reduce the shine of the image and will distract the viewer from the main message. Keep the location spacious yet luxurious.
4. Proper composition
The composition and the main feature are all you wish to add to the photo frame. For instance, you are clicking the dining hall, and your main feature is the seating arrangement. You can include compositions like wall frames, chandeliers, table decorations, etc., to make the images attractive.
Again, don’t add too much to a single image. The purpose here is to highlight the main element and use other features as complementary features. If you clutter your image too much, none of the elements will be clear.
5. Highlight interiors and exteriors.
Interiors and exteriors play a vital role in hotel photoshoots. And sometimes, along with the facilities available, people pay special attention to the interiors and exteriors. Hence, paying particular attention to them is important.
Your hotel interiors will most likely be covered in the hotel photoshoot. For exteriors, select the best time of the day, and click some images of the areas surrounding your hotel or best complement your hotel. You may have a beach near your hotel or some sanctuary. Include those in your exterior images.
Ensure your exterior hotel images don’t include unnecessary elements, such as poles, trash cans, animals, etc.
6. Proper lighting
Lighting is a crucial part of hotel photography. The best hotel photographs can be clicked in natural light for a calm and pleasant look. Also, ensure that no harsh shadows are present in your hotel photographs that can reduce the shine of the images.
Use reflectors and diffusers wherever necessary. You can also use artificial lighting, such as a warm glow for hotel rooms or neon lights for bars and lounges. It will create a feel and help people better relate to the images.
Further, you can incorporate natural and artificial lights to get a detailed and systematic look in your hotel photography. Using both sources of light will give you better control of the lighting.
7. Human Touch
Don’t make your hotel photographs all mechanical. You can hire professional models who can pose at different shoot locations of your hotel.
Also, emotions showcased in images influence the mood in reality. If you shoot the model smiling and enjoying the facilities, people will likely relate to it and prefer your hotel over others. Give your hotel photoshoot a human touch and make them more alive.
What You Need to Do Before Capturing Professional Hotel Photography
Some mandatory pre-photoshoot requirements are protected to ensure your hotel photoshoot goes smoothly and you get some stunning images to represent your business online.
Plan and prepare
Planning and preparing is a hotel photoshoot’s first and highly crucial step. Get familiar with every corner of your hotel and identify which location should be captured. Also, identify which location will be best captured by natural light and which location will be captured by artificial light.
Prepare a list of all the requirements so you remember everything. Prepare everything in advance to avoid last-minute fuss.
Discuss the requirements
Discussing the requirements in advance is important to ensure that all goes according to your needs and requirements. First, you need to discuss every real estate photography requirement and strategy with the photographer so that you are both on the same page.
Further, discuss all the arrangements that have to be made with your hotel staff. For instance, discuss in advance which location has to be shot so that the team can adequately clean it and arrange the interior properly.
Make your hotel photography ready
The following essential aspect that has to be taken care of in advance is to ensure that your hotel is photography ready. Instructing the staff won’t be enough. Ensure you visit every location and check whether everything is according to the plan.
Pay special attention to the organization of the interiors and the crucial features that must be included in the hotel images.
Decide on shoot timings.
Lastly, decide on the best shoot time. Do you want some images early in the day or the afternoon so that sun rays can compliment your images well? Or some locations will look perfect in the evening time.
Decide the shoot timings in advance. You can shoot all the images simultaneously or spread the shoot for a whole day and blend your photography with natural light.
Examples of Exceptional Hotel Photography Ideas
Some examples of exceptional hotel photography ideas are-
The luxurious royal suite
The luxury royal suite is all about luxurious features that shout radiance and royalty. From the vast room space to the divine facilities, the hotel room has everything to make you feel like a king of your palace, aka your hotel room.
The luxurious royal couple suite photoshoot can be best clicked in a bit of dark light, giving the suite a royal yet enriching vibes. You can include many compositions in these images, such as bed posts, side tables with high-quality dishes, royal bed covers, etc.
The warm and cozy winter rooms
Remember those warm and cozy places where you can snuggle in your blanket and enjoy the cold winters with your favorite pizza and movie? Yeah, that’s the warm and cozy winter rooms that various hotels provide.
Along with highlighting the main features, add relevant ambiance compositions such as fluffy cushions, warm blankets, snow from the window, etc. It will work as a wonder to attract customers to your hotel.
Cabins
Imagine you are in a forest, peeking outside from a large window, enjoying the rain, and hearing birds and animal sounds nearby. Cabins are a perfect place to enjoy the natural environment while sitting in the comfort of your place.
Integrating cabin and environmental features is the best way to get cabins clicked. You can click the images of the window with rain in the background or get a hotel lobby photoshoot with a warm chimney somewhere in the lobby room.
Nature surrounded rooms
Nature-surrounded rooms are similar to cabins but are probably somewhere on hill stations with a clear view of mountains, peaks, and snow. Nature-surrounded rooms are also highly cozy and comfortable rooms.
You can get them clicked by focusing on features that represent comfort.
Conclusion
Hotel photography is the best means to establish a solid digital presence and attract many people to the hotel. With the right strategies and planned efforts, you can get the best photoshoot done and enjoy its benefits for a long time. Also, preparing yourself in advance and planning the whole photoshoot is essential for smooth execution and the best results. You can also take assistance from Spyne to convert your regular images into high-quality visuals. Spyne’s AI Photo Editor uses advanced AI technology to enhance your hotel images and increase your social media presence.