The Importance of Quality Vacation Rental Photos
by Ashley Miller
One of the most important elements in renting a vacation property is having good photos available for interested parties. If someone’s looking to rent a place for a vacation, they’re probably not going to be able to come visit it personally before their holiday – meaning that they’re potentially committing to a long stay in your property sight unseen. That can be a bit of a gamble, so renters depend on accurate photos to help them make decisions. You can help them by making sure the photos really give a good idea of what the home is like.
- Use a good camera. Your phone or webcam is not a good camera. You don’t need professional-level control over things like focus and iso, but you do want pictures that look professional. In fact, it can even be worth getting a friend or local photography student to come over and take the pictures with you if you’re not so comfortable with photography yourself.
- Make sure to take exteriors during your peak season. If you’ve got beautiful azaleas that bloom only for a couple of weeks in the spring and your entire landscaping has been centered around them, take the pictures during the spring! Are you in the mountains and very popular around leaf-peeping time, then get a picture in the fall. If you have multiple high-occupancy seasons, then take an exterior shot during each.
- Time of day is also important. The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset are known as the golden hour because the color and quality of the light is so beautiful. They exploit this in Hollywood, but you can just as easily make it work for you; try to get your exteriors when the light still has that golden quality.
- If you can at all avoid it (Seattle and Cleveland disregard), don’t take photos when the sky is overcast. No one wants a gloomy vacation, so don’t take gloomy photos. Blue skies, some friendly clouds, but not doom and gloom.
- Make sure it’s clean, but don’t make it sterile. People like vacation homes because they feel like homes, but they also don’t want to feel like they’re going to be staying somewhere dirty. Feel free to include flowers, books, bowls of fruit, apple pies, or whatever else strikes your fancy – just make sure it’s all neat and tidy.
- If you have a fireplace, have a fire.
- Don’t take photos of the bathrooms unless they’re really gorgeous. They almost always look icky and small, no matter how you angle it, and most people don’t need to see them before making a decision on a house
- Photograph all the bedrooms. Make sure there’s plenty of ambient light, make sure the windows are open. Beds should be made, nothing should be on the floor or on the nightstand.
- Be willing to get on your knees or on a step ladder to get the best angle for the room.
- Photoshop is your friend. You really want to be able to edit the pictures after you take them - it makes a huge difference. Color temperature, contrast, brightness, cropping, and adjusting the horizon are all important things you’ll want to be able to adjust in the computer. You can take mediocre pictures and turn them into good ones, and turn great photos into irresistible ones.
Finally, make sure you post your photos online where potential guests will see them. If you have your own vacation rental website (recommended), then you can post as many photos as you want. Photo sharing websites like flickr and photobucket are also useful places to store your photos online. The various vacation rental listing sites all have different plans: Homeaway allows you post only 24 photos, while FlipKey encourages owners to add unlimited photos. Many guests primarily look at your pictures, so make sure you make them look good!