Why your own photographs are losing you bookings
Most properties look worse in their listing than they do in person. It is rarely the camera. It is the hour, the height, the order and the frames that are missing.
· 3 min read · Northlight
A guest choosing between two villas on a phone does it in seconds, on photographs alone. They have not read the description and they will not read it until a picture has made them want to. So the photographs are not decoration on the listing. They are the listing.
Most of the properties we visit are better in person than in their own pictures. The reasons are almost always the same four.
1. They were taken at the wrong hour
Photographs taken between eleven and three are taken in the worst light of the day. The sun is high, so every shadow falls straight down, the sky turns white, the sea loses its colour and the building looks flat and hot. It is when most photographs are taken, because it is when people have time.
The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset do the opposite. The light comes in low and soft, the walls turn warm, the water holds its colour and the shadows give the building its shape. A pool photographed twenty minutes after its lights come on, while there is still colour in the sky, is the frame that makes people book.
2. The camera was at the wrong height
A room photographed from eye height, standing in the doorway, looks small and shows mostly floor. The same room shot from chest height, from the corner, with the window in the frame, reads bigger and brighter, and it shows the guest what they will see from the bed.
The fix costs nothing but patience: lower the camera, step into the corner, and turn on every lamp.
3. The most important frames are missing
Guests look for the same few things, in roughly the same order: the view, the bedroom, the bathroom, the pool or the garden, and how far it is to the beach or the town. Listings are often missing two or three of those, or show five photographs of the same terrace from slightly different angles.
The frame that is most often missing is the one that answers “how far is it, really?” A photograph from above, showing the lane from the gate to the sand, answers it in a way no sentence can.
4. They do not look like one place
Photographs taken on different days, on different phones, in different light, look like several properties. One set, taken on one day and edited together, looks like somewhere with a single standard, which is what a guest is trying to decide.
What to do about it
If you are taking your own photographs, choose one clear morning and one clear evening, walk the property in the order a guest would, and take every room from the corner at chest height with the lights on. Leave the midday hours for the interiors, and photograph the outside only when the light is low.
If you would rather it was done for you, this is what our photography is: one day, both light windows, every room the guest asks about, and the aerial where the site allows it. Every frame is in your name, so the same photographs can go on your own site and on every listing you have.
