Hotel photos need to look appealing while setting a room's realistic impression. However, photographing vast properties can be tricky. I'm sharing tips on how to photograph hotel rooms to grab the attention of clients and secure bookings.

How to Photograph Hotel Rooms

To photograph hotel rooms, use a wide-angle lens and try various exposures to avoid distortion and glare. Shoot in different angles and compositions to highlight a room's amenities. It also helps to create a story so you can set the scene to help guests envisions the room's vastness and feel.

Hotel rooms can have so much to offer. However, in most cases, it only takes a few images to either attract a visitor or skip booking the room. With these tips, you can photograph hotel rooms properly and creatively.

Stage the Scene

What experience do you want guests to have by staying in the hotel room? Before anything else, make sure to style and stage the scene to what you need. This way, you won't waste time adjusting furniture or placing props while shooting.

Do you want families to feel relaxed by staying in bed, ordering room service, and watching movies? Does the hotel offer personalized welcome gifts, in-room entertainment, or complimentary books? These are among the most in-demand hotel amenities that motivate guests to book a room.

Imagine how guests will want the room to welcome them, neat and fresh. Turn off electronics, empty trash bins, and hide wiring. Put a vase of fresh flowers or a welcome basket to make the room feel homey.

Use Proper Equipment

Hotels will use your images on a variety of platforms. You'll need to use professional gear to produce photos in high resolution.

Camera: The most important thing here is to use a camera body with a quality sensor to shoot in various lighting conditions.
Lens: It's best to use a wide angle when shooting hotel rooms to capture the whole scene. Lenses with 16-35mm and 14-24mm focal ranges are my favorite since they usually have wide apertures that capture more light. Additionally, the wide perspective enables me to capture as many details as possible without too much distortion.
External lighting: Some rooms won't have sufficient lighting. You'll need to use flash and softbox lighting to set the mood while ensuring even image exposure.
Tripod: You may need to use longer shutter speeds to keep the shutter open longer and let in more light. For this reason, you'll need a reliable tripod to easily adjust the height and manipulate the legs for better positioning while avoiding camera shake.

Set the Correct Camera Settings

It's not enough that you're using a high-end camera or the most recent wide-angle lens. You should be able to use the right camera settings to guarantee even exposure and excellent image quality.

Aperture: Use an aperture of around f/8 or smaller, depending on your lens. What's important is that the aperture lets in as much light as possible to enable sharp focusing.
Shutter speed: Maintain a shutter speed of around 1/100, especially if there won't be moving elements in your shot.
ISO: Keep the ISO value as low as possible, like 100, to avoid image noise.

Try Various Angles and Compositions

A study shows a 225% boost in hotel booking even if you use one photo of a room. This is because a well-taken photograph reduces cognitive load, simplifying a potential guest's booking decision. What more when you have at least four varying angles?

The goal is to make the room look as spacious as possible. Most hotel websites have at least four pictures of a room to give guests a true-to-life perspective of the space. When doing test shots, try to take sample photos by experimenting with angles and shooting heights.

Hotel room that has a white mattress and brown frame with a white cowboy boots at the foot of the bed

Shooting from every corner is one of the best ways to showcase a hotel room. This allows you to make the room appear bigger while providing context.
Bathrooms are incredibly tricky to shoot, especially those with small spaces and many reflective surfaces. The key is to use a 24mm wide-angle lens to shoot the whole area while showing important details like amenities, towels, robes, and decorations.
Keep your perspective straight and at eye level, especially for detailed shots.
Shoot from a lower angle to create a dominant effect if you need to highlight a feature or amenity.
Capture an equal amount of floor and ceiling to create symmetry and give guests a better idea of the space.
Use leading lines such as the hallway or doorframe to guide a guest's attention to the room's main feature, like the king-sized bed.
Show a hotel's personality by including brand elements such as the logo on pillows or the name on pens.

Control the Light

Lighting dramatically affects how the space will look from a guest's perspective. Whether you utilize the room's available lighting or external lights, your overall lighting should feel warm and inviting.

First, I draw the curtains to the side to let in natural light. I also normally shoot images in different exposures using different lighting combinations. This enables me to stitch an HDR image to balance the exposure.

Conclusion

When photographing hotel rooms, it's crucial to use the right gear, work on various angles, and style the rooms properly. As a Dallas hotel photographer, I follow these steps to produce professionally-photographed rooms that will sell experience and get guests to book.

How to Photograph Hotel Rooms