Leveraging The Power of Photography in Short-Term Renting
Many times, we have talked about optimizing your listings and your social media to captivate guests and grow returns. Photography is a central part of this. It has the power to promote engagement and purchase but also disappoint and over promise.
Your photography must be strategic in the sense that images must showcase the appeal of yet realistically capture your offerings. Beautiful pictures can go a long way, but only if they match reality once your guest arrives at the property.
Here at Host and Keep, we have seen how responsive potential guests are to aesthetically pleasing digital content. Aligned with our values and purpose, our amazing in-house photographer works to create images that communicate the stories of our homes and incentivize clicks and bookings.
Now, we are paying it forward with tips and tricks we use in our photography. Whether you are personally taking pictures of a property or starting a discussion with with your photographer prior to a shoot, here is a useful checklist to truly leverage the power of photography in your advertising:
Working Efficiently with Straight Lines
Like in real life, humans will always try to make sense of a space. They will look for the horizon of a picture and observe how the rest of the objects in the photo relate to it. If a picture is lopsided, the image will not have a logical appearance and therefore will not be visually pleasing to the viewer. This can lead to customers skipping a picture instead of clicking.
When taking photos, try to make them look stable with straight horizons, whether this is a table, a bedframe, or the surface of a countertop. Angles must also work with the horizons, creating a visually positive relationship between other objects and the horizon. Viewers’ eyes are drawn to 90 degree angles and perpendicular relationships between objects. So watch out for unbalanced frames, slanted furniture, or simply a lopsided camera.
Working Well with Colors
The selling power of a property photo can be overshadowed by simple factors such as excess saturation and unflattering shadows. Harsh lighting, blurred images, temperamental weather, and a myriad other unprecedented technical difficulties can distort our perception of color in property images. Thus, using digital editing platforms has become an invaluable skill that real estate agents have master to adequately capture the genuine charm of their bookings.
Nonetheless, the practice of real-estate photography goes far beyond just editing and requires meticulous planning. If you plan on editing all photos manually, aim for subtle alterations that will allow you to capture how the home looks to the naked eye. If you are working with a photographer or on your own, make sure to envision and take note of a specific color scheme. It is also helpful to lay out several plans in case of unprecedented lighting or weather mishaps.
Remember that when editing real-estate images: less is always more. You want to ensure that the property remains the focal point of each photo! Aiming for a natural approach will ensure you achieve a pure and genuine look and help your visitors envision their stay at the property.
Use Flattering Lighting
Ideal lighting creates a warm and cozy feel without diminishing the whiteness and clarity that defines quality pictures. Choose a sunny day to conduct shoots, preferably during sunset hours. This creates, as you might have heard, the beautiful golden hour lighting.
We understand that not all properties receive the same amount of light or face light in the same direction. Therefore, creating great lighting consists of more than just flattering natural light. Manipulate lamps and other light sources so that your photos have a warm, inviting tone without interrupting necessary whiteness.
You can go a step further by using advanced picture editing apps. Making flat, one-filter edits can enhance the lighting of some parts but damage the exposure of others, as different spaces photograph differently. These apps can allow you to create exposure that is just right for each element of a photo.
Consulting Experts
Post-processing has become an integral part of real estate photography as the real-estate field has become highly dependent on picturesque and aspirational yet accurate depictions of locations. To remain ahead of all real-estate photography trends, consult experts, employ online learning tools, and identify the resources available in your area or online. In doing so, you will not only be able to produce novel and enticing images of your properties but lower your production and processing time and costs.
Property images and real-estate photography are tricky practices confounded by several do's and don'ts. However, the main characteristic of a quality real-estate image is to capture the authentic charm of your property by using contemporary editing platforms as a tool and not a crutch.
