What to photograph before the season
The season is decided in October and November, when guests are choosing. Twelve frames every property should have before then, and the hour to take each one.
· 3 min read · Northlight
On the south coast, the months that fill a villa’s year run from December to April. The guests who come then are choosing in October and November, on their phones, from photographs. Whatever is on your listing and your website by then is what they choose from.
October and November are also the second intermonsoon on the south coast, with afternoon storms. That suits a shoot better than it sounds: the mornings are often clear, and the light after rain is clean. Plan for the morning, and keep the evening as a second chance.
The twelve frames
1. The approach. The gate, the drive, the first thing a guest sees. Late afternoon, when the light comes across the front of the building.
2. The building at dusk. The whole property with its lights on and colour still in the sky. Usually the best photograph you will own, and the first one on the website.
3. Every room type, from the corner. Chest height, every lamp on, the window in the frame. One for each kind of room a guest can book.
4. The view from the bed. What the guest wakes up to. If it is the sea or the garden, this frame sells the room on its own.
5. The bathroom. Guests always look for it and it is often missing. Clean light, towels folded, nothing on the counter.
6. The pool in the morning. Still water, long shadows, no one in it yet.
7. The pool after dark. Twenty minutes after the pool lights come on, while the sky is still blue.
8. Breakfast. On the table where it is served, in the morning light. A guest decides about a place partly on what the first meal of the day looks like.
9. The walk to the beach or the town. From above if the site allows a drone, or along the path at eye height if not. It answers the question every guest asks: how far, really?
10. The details. The things that make the place itself: a carved door, the tiles, the hammock, the shelf of books.
11. The people, with their permission. The cook, the person who meets the guests. A face makes a property somewhere you are expected, not just somewhere to sleep.
12. Three vertical frames. Cropped tall for Instagram and WhatsApp status, where most guests will see you first.
A few rules for the day
Shoot the outside only in the low light, morning and evening. Use the middle of the day for the inside, when the light through the windows is even. Turn every light on and every fan off. Move the bins, the hoses and the cars. Take more than you need of the frames that matter most.
Then put the same set everywhere: your website, your Google listing and every booking site. One set, taken on one day, makes the property look like one place.
If you would rather hand the whole list to someone else, it is what our Villa Day is, and booking by 30 November leaves time for the website to be built around the photographs before December.
