5 Tips for Hotel Photography

One of the most useful digital marketing assets that hotels can use to showcase their property is professional photography. Hotel photography in itself can encompass a variety of different photography styles including interior photography, lifestyle photography, food photography, and more.

As a travel photographer, I love working with hotels and seeing how their property and amenities complement the city that they are based in.

In order to best showcase a hotel’s amenities (luxury suite rooms, conference rooms, outdoor pool, etc.), photography that shows off the best features of each hotel should be featured on websites, social media pages, newsletters, and other digital channels to best advertise your property.

Taking my experience as a commercial photographer who has worked with hotels around Los Angeles, I’m going to share five helpful hotel photography tips that can be implemented in your next photoshoot.

Create a Shot List

Creating a shot list in advance is a great way to make sure that your hotel photoshoot will be off to a good start. If you have one day, or even only a half-day to capture a variety of different rooms around the property, then a shot list acts as a useful reference tool and schedule for the photographer to follow.

Unless you’re taking photos at a time when there will be no guests, chances are you’ll have to plan out when to photograph certain rooms when they won’t be open to the public.

When shooting for Hilton’s Wayfarer DTLA hotel, I planned to photograph the rooftop deck early in the morning when only the staff was around. This made shooting the location much easier since I didn’t have to worry about photographing around guests and could photograph the space freely.

I like to ask my hotel clients if it’s possible to visit the property in person at least a few days in advance in order to best decide which rooms to visit first and which ones to save for last.

Take Photos At Different Times of the Day

Continuing from my last point, you can diversify your hotel photoshoot by capturing images of the property at different times of the day. Whether you want to showcase the illuminating outdoor pool at night or a beautiful sunset city skyline view from the rooftop terrace, you can create engaging content featuring your property at any time of the day.

If there is only a half-day worth of shooting, I would personally aim for shooting either very early in the morning for sunrise, or late in the evening until sunset/night.

If you’ll only be taking photos of the hotel rooms, then I would avoid shooting at night since there won’t be any natural light to use (For my personal preference: natural light is generally a better way to go than using artificial light.)

If you’re working with a model, then being able to master lighting situations for portraits will be a huge benefit (more on working with models later).

Avoid Distortion for Interior Spaces

When it comes to taking photos of hotel room suites and indoor spaces, you want the space to look as grand as possible but distorting the photo to look incredibly wide can give a false impression of what the room actually looks like.

I’ll usually back up as far as possible into a corner with a wide-angle lens to get as wide of a shot as I can, but avoid using a lens that provides too much distortion in the first place.

You’ll also want to be careful of shooting hotel rooms from too low of an angle as you don’t want to get too much floor in the shot.

Focus On The Details

While it might be obvious to showcase wide angles of each room to get a full view of the space, closing in on specific details of a room provides an opportunity to highlight distinct features of a room for your digital marketing.

You can focus on certain decorations that make your space stand out or that are tied to your branding. For example, Hilton’s Jamaica Bay Inn is based along the coastal city of Marina del Rey and the sailboat and sea turtle are both good reflections of that. 

Comparatively, Hilton’s Wayfarer Hotel is based in Downtown Los Angeles which features a lot of street art on different buildings. The beautiful black and white art on the walls of their deluxe suite is a great representation of Downtown Los Angeles.

Hire Models for Your Hotel Campaigns

If you’re looking to truly elevate your hotel’s digital marketing with professional photography, then you should consider adding models to the photoshoot.

Depending on your marketing campaign, you can feature certain models based on the demographic you’re trying to target. For example, if you want to target couples as a way to promote your hotel as a destination for a romantic getaway, then adding models to the photoshoot is a better way to visually communicate your campaign than just a shot of the hotel.

As a lifestyle photographer and creative director, I consistently work with models and on-camera talent to produce marketing assets for different businesses.

HOTEL PHOTOGRAPHY WITH BRIAN BROWN FILM

Marketing your hotel with visual assets that showcase your property’s amenities is essential in standing out from other hotels. Hotel photography requires a lot of planning and technical knowledge on both the production and editing, but the results can be a great way to advertise your property to new potential guests.

I enjoy working with marketing teams of different hotels and learning not only about their existing branding, but also their campaign goals to further promote their brand to a larger audience. I have been fortunate enough to work with hotels to produce photography for their home pages, as well as banner videos on their websites.

If you are looking for a hotel photographer, please don’t hesitate to reach out here or in the contact form below.

Thanks for reading and until next time.

“Brian was such a pleasure to work with. He is professional, comes prepared, and the best part – takes beautiful photos! He takes direction well but also has an amazing creative eye and catches beauty in every shot. He is humble and overall a great photographer to work with.”

Kiki Popa | Marketing Manager | Marina del Rey Hotel & Hilton’s Jamaica Bay Inn