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How to Turn a Good Photo of Your Vacation Rental into a Great One
Bring life to your photos and renters to your doorstep with a few easy changes.
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Photos are arguably the single most important part of your vacation rental listings. That’s why it’s vital that your photos not just be good, but great. So what makes a photograph great?
A Great Photo:
- Dazzles with clarity and high resolution.
- Grabs your eye with colors in brilliant hues.
- Uses available light to brighten the room without washing it out.
- Features a staged set.
- Shows no clutter or indistinguishable items.
- Keeps the eye engaged with purposeful framing.
- Features something of interest in at least 3 quadrants (see photo on right.)
- Showcases the feel of the home.
- Appear recent and up-to-date (i.e. no timestamps from 1997.)
- Clearly depicts the size of the space.
- Feels alive.
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How to Turn a Good Photo into a Great Photo: Example #1
Here are two photos of the same room. The first is a perfectly acceptable photo of the living area of one of my cabins. It shows the size and quality of the room well-enough, but lacks any pizzazz. The second photo is of the exact same room, but is staged just a little bit differently-- and look at the difference.
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What's Different?
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Fire in the fireplace. If you have a fireplace in a room, consider lighting it to liven up the shot.
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Moved the furniture slightly, so that the entire pool table was in the frame. The table brings in some much-needed color.
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Taken from a chair, so that I was looking down at the room instead of straight at it.
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Angled the rug near the door-- this gives the illusion of added length to the room.
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Opened all of the blinds in the room and the blinds on the door.
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Aimed lower, so that the ceiling fan wasn't in the picture. When you're framing a photo, watch out for ceiling fans-- they tend to sneak into the frame.
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Removed the knickknacks from around the fireplace. The bear next to the hearth looks like a mouse hole!
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Arranged magazines on the coffee table. Pay special attention to the items on the surfaces of tables and countertops. These tend to make a room look messy or cluttered.
See, even with just a few small changes, you can make the rooms of your vacation home that you have painstakingly decorated photograph as well as they appear in real life.
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How to Turn a Good Photo into a Great Photo: Example #2
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What's Different?
- Horizontal rather than vertical. If possible, try to take horizontally-oriented photographs. These tend to better showcase the size and contents of a room. Plus, most vacation rental websites are geared to horizontal photos, so your pictures will display the best on these sites if you follow this format.
- Natural light. The sunlight streaming through the window gives the room a warm glow and allows the bright colors to shine.
- Uses all 4 quadrants. To determine whether you’re making the most of your photos, try breaking each photo into 4 quadrants.
- Framed the photo so that the entire bed is in the frame. Often bedroom photos do not clearly convey the size of the bed or beds in the room. When possible try to get the entire bed in the frame of the photo to more clearly show the size of the bed.
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| How to Turn a Good Photo into a Great Photo: Example #3 |
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What’s Different?
- Wall color. Consider painting the walls of your vacation home a bright color to make the room "pop" in photographs.
- Time of day. The time of day that you take a photo will directly affect the hues of the colors in your room. The first photo was taken at night with a flash and as a result has cooler colors than the second photo that was taken early in the morning.
- Taken from a step back to get more in the frame. Sometimes all you need to do is take a step back to better capture the size of the room and its relation to the other rooms in your home.
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When framing a photo, first check:
- Are the rugs straight?
- Are there unruly cords from electronics or lamps?
- Are the wall hangings straight?
- Is there trash in the waste baskets?
- Did your dog or cat sneak into the shot?
- Are the bedspreads smooth and the pillows fluffed?
- Are there unnecessary items on the counters or bookshelves?
- Is your reflection in the frame?
- Are there ceiling fans or lights in the top of the frame?
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What tips or tricks have your discovered to take better photos of your vacation home?
"Adding fresh flowers to every room has such a welcome effect! Also an array of fresh colorful fruit on the kitchen counter says come and enjoy!" - Linda, Hilo, HI (HomeAway #179847, VRBO #86020)
"ALWAYS take 5-8 pictures of every area, from slightly different angles. Select the best later. Use a small stepstool to raise the camera about 7 ft off ground for a more professional look. Try to not use flash to eliminate shadows and "flash bursts" in mirrors or shiny surfaces. Light the room with available lights, outside light etc. Look carefully at open windows in the scene. What you see outside may ruin picture." - George, Outer Banks, NC (VacationRentals.com #1963)
“I make sure as many advertized amenities as possible show up in my photos without appearing cluttered. For example, we highlight a fully stocked kitchen and one of our photos shows a long counter with toaster, toaster oven, coffee pot, electric can opener, and a blender. The under cabinet lighting and white counter top create the impression we wanted of a well appointed, spacious kitchen to work in. The sunroom photo shows the wicker furniture, porch rocker, breakfast nook and windows all around.” - Tom & Kate, Wells, ME (HomeAway #154101)
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© Copyright, HomeAway, Inc. 2006, U.090420.AF
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