Hotel photography tips: what to plan before the shoot

The most useful hotel photography tips have little to do with cameras. They’re about planning: what to photograph, at what time of day, and where each photo will be used. Settle those three things before the photographer arrives, and the shoot follows a plan instead of guesswork.

Below you’ll find the shot list I use as a starting point for hotels, B&Bs, and agriturismi (farm stays), the light each space needs, and what to agree with your photographer before the day. It works the same way for a vacation rental or a holiday let, and most of it still applies if you take the photos yourself.

The hotel photography shot list

A shot list is simply the list of photos to take, grouped and in order. Guests book a room, but they choose a place, and a complete set shows both. These are the photos every hotel website needs, and every listing on booking sites such as Booking.com, Airbnb, and Vrbo. They fall into five groups.

1. The hero shot

One photo that tells guests which property this is: the facade with the hills behind it, the pool against the valley, the view from the terrace, the stone courtyard. It becomes your cover photo on the booking sites, the first image on your website, and often the first photo people see of you on Google.

Plan it for the best light of the day, and plan two or three options. You’ll only know which one works when you compare them side by side, at the size of a phone screen.

2. Every room type you sell

Guests book a room type, so each type needs its own set: a wide shot from the corner that shows the whole room, one toward the window or the view, the bathroom, and one or two details. Don’t skip the bathroom. It’s one of the first things guests check.

Google gives hotels similar advice for their Business Profile: at least three photos of the most popular rooms, every type of room on offer, and photos that truthfully show what it’s like to be in the room as a guest. “Truthfully” matters. A room photographed to look bigger than it is turns into a complaint in the reviews.

3. Shared spaces, in use

Breakfast room, pool, garden, terrace, spa, restaurant, the lounge with the fireplace. Photograph them the way guests use them: breakfast laid out in the morning light, towels folded on the lounge chairs, the fire lit. An empty dining room is just a room. A table set for breakfast is a reason to book.

People in the photos are optional, but if you want them, plan for them. You and your staff at work look natural. Models add to the budget. Guests who happen to be there should appear only if they agree.

One way to plan a whole set is as a guest’s day: breakfast, a walk through the olive trees, a visit to a winery nearby, sunset from the terrace, dinner with local produce. The photos follow the stay from morning to night, and that stay is what guests are really choosing.

4. The details

Close-ups carry the feeling of a place and fill the gaps between wide shots: linen and terracotta, old beams, a bottle of your own olive oil, a key on a wooden table, a coffee cup on the bedside table with the hills out of focus behind it. They also work well on a small screen, in a social media post or a story.

Use only what guests will really find. If you don’t serve wine by the pool, don’t put a glass of it in the photo.

5. The area around you

Guests want to know where they’re going. Show the village, the vineyards, the walk into town, the view from the gate. For a property in the countryside, one aerial shot can show the house, the pool, the grounds, and the valley together. Flight rules limit where drones can fly, so ask about it early. I explain when aerial photos are worth it in drone photos for hotels and villas.

Plan the shoot around the light

Weak hotel photos usually fail on light, not on equipment. Ceiling lamps, yellow bulbs, hard shadows, windows burned to white: the room looks cheap even when it isn’t. Soft daylight does the opposite. It shows true colors and makes a room feel warm and calm.

That’s why I study the light before anything else: when the sun enters each room, from which side, and which spaces look best in the morning or late in the afternoon. The timing decides the order of the shot list. A typical plan looks like this:

• Interiors: soft morning or late-afternoon light, or a bright cloudy day, which fills a room without hard shadows.
• Exteriors and the pool: early morning or the hour before sunset. In the midday sun the water looks gray, the shadows are hard, and the sky turns white.
• Dusk: the facade, the terrace, or the pool with the lights on, just after sunset, while the sky is still blue.
• Season: shoot in the season your guests come for. A summer property photographed under a flat November sky sells the wrong trip.

Agree on a backup date as well. If the day turns gray and rainy, it’s better to move the shoot than to waste it.

The brief: what to agree with your photographer

A photographer who knows your property only from its website will photograph what they see. A brief tells them what you sell. When I photograph a property, I go through these points with the owner during the site visit, before the shoot.

Where each photo will be used. Each channel crops differently:

• Your website wants wide, horizontal images: a strong hero for the home page and a full set for each room type.
• On Booking.com, Airbnb, and Vrbo, guests first see your cover photo as a small thumbnail on a phone, so it must read clearly at that size.
• Google Business Profile needs the exterior and the entrance, so guests recognize the building when they arrive (Google suggests at least three exterior photos, taken at different times of day). Add new photos each season.
• Social media wants vertical versions of the key scenes.

Ask for your key shots in both horizontal and vertical versions, with some space around the edges for cropping. Exact sizes change from time to time; the current ones are in photo sizes for Airbnb, Booking.com, and Google Business Profile.

Your priorities. Which rooms sell best, which earn the most, what guests praise in their reviews, and what makes you different from the property down the road. The photographer can’t guess these.

The guests you want. Couples, families, hikers, cyclists, wine lovers, and people who work remotely look for different things: a quiet desk, a safe place to leave bikes, space for children to play. Photograph what your guests look for before they book.

Your style. Bright and airy, or warm and intimate; minimal, or rich in detail. If you already have a website or a logo, share them, so the new photos match.

What stays out of the frame. The neighbor’s roof, the parking lot, a construction site, the laundry area, staff cars.

What you get. How many edited photos, in which formats, when they arrive, and where you can use them. Price, usage rights, and the questions to ask before you hire someone are covered in my guide to hotel photography prices and quotes.

Hotel photography tips for the day before the shoot

Much of what makes the photos work is preparation you can do yourself. Use this as your checklist:

• The rooms on the list kept free the night before, and someone on site who can open every door.
• Guests told, if you’re open, which areas will be photographed and when.
• Beds made tight, fresh towels folded, bathroom counters empty.
• Everyday things out of sight: remote controls, chargers and cables, trash cans, printed notices, housekeeping carts.
• Every bulb working, all with the same warm color. Mixed bulbs leave patches of yellow and blue that are hard to fix later.
• Windows clean, curtains even, lampshades straight.
• Outside: lawn mowed, leaves swept, pool cleaned, umbrellas open, cars moved out of sight.
• Breakfast or evening drinks set up for their time slot, the way you really serve them.

Five mistakes that ruin hotel photos

Keep this list for the day the photos arrive, too.

1. The wrong light. Dark rooms, white windows with no view, yellow lamps. The fix is mostly timing, not editing.
2. Crooked or stretched rooms. Tilted walls and random angles look careless. An ultra-wide lens makes a room look bigger than it is, and guests notice when they walk in.
3. Spaces with no life. Rooms and nothing else: no breakfast, no evening on the terrace, nothing that shows how a day there feels.
4. A mixed set. Old phone photos next to new ones, warm colors next to cold ones. Even good photos look careless side by side. Consistent color across the whole set is part of the editing you should expect.
5. Old photos. Rooms before the renovation, furniture that’s gone. Guests who find something different from the photos feel misled. Update your photos at least every two years, and after any change guests will see.

If you’d rather hand over the whole list, planning and light included, this is the work I do for hotels, B&Bs, and agriturismi. I’m based in Tuscany, between Pistoia and Lucca, and I work across Italy.

Quick answers

How long does a hotel photo shoot take?

For a mid-sized property, usually half a day. More rooms, or sessions at several times of day (morning, sunset, and dusk), can take a full day planned around the sun. I confirm the timing at the site visit.

How many photos does a hotel need?

Count them from the shot list instead of aiming for a number: every room type, every space guests use, some details, and the area. On Google Business Profile, Google asks hotels for at least three photos of their most popular rooms and one of each common area. The order and the quality of the set matter more than the total.