One of the reasons I love living in North Norfolk is that it’s a holiday magnet. I know – because it was holidaying in Norfolk that made me (and my wife Debbie of course) want to live here. Not that it matters, but we started in the Broads and worked our way around North and West Norfolk until we found the area we wanted to live in. We’re now extremely happily settled in Fakenham and loving every minute of our lives in this extraordinary county.
Anyways, back to holidays. Holidays necessitate places for people to stay and I’ve been lucky enough to photograph some fabulous properties over the years. Property photography may seem easy, a few photos of each room on a sunny day (oh, and don’t forget the outside) and bob’s your uncle! Well, unsurprisingly, it can take a little more than that to get excellent images that can be an asset to your hotel, bed and breakfast or holiday rental business for years to come. There’s an art to photographing a property to bring out it’s unique character and the features that will have people booking away!
First, of course, it’s worth saying that images are the absolute key to any website or social media that you either have in place already or are putting together for your holiday property business. Written information is critical of course but images are what will initially sell your property to a prospective client (or in fact put them off in favour of the next one they see). So, how to get the best possible images of your property?
You can take the photos yourself. With skill, time and good equipment, this is possible. But it’s not easy and it likely requires not only the taking of the photographs but the patient post-processing and editing of them to get them looking their absolute best. Not to mention the issue of sizing the final images to ensure that they precisely fit your website, or your Airbnb listing, for example.
Equipment that is pretty much essential to property photography that you also may not have to hand includes a good quality tripod (and a remote release to go with it), a range of lenses including that well-known favourite for properties – the wide angle, high quality image editing software and maybe some wireless lighting options for darker areas. These all have a key role to play in contributing to a suite of images that should set you up for a good long while.
There are also some techniques which are key – for example, getting uprights, like walls and doors, actually vertical, making sure that a whole image (rather than just a part) is in focus, and having the interior of a room, and the view through its window, equally well-lit so that the viewer can see both without either the room being too dark, or the view through the window being too light. The image above from one of my previous shoots exemplify some of these points.
Achieving these objectives is one of things that will set the images of your property apart from your competitors. It’s also worth thinking about how you dress the property for the photoshoot, and also what details you have in your property that will really catch a potential client’s eye. I can advise in both these areas.
It’s my mantra that imagery has to be worth investing in. The quality of the imagery you achieve has not only to shine vis-à-vis your competitors, but it also has to be a long lasting asset to your business, and it’s this I try my best to provide.
If you feel I can help you with imagery for your property or holiday business, please do not hesitate to get in touch.