Vacation Rental Photography: Show the Stay, Not Just the Space

Lightly edited: Filler words, repeated fragments, and obvious transcription errors have been removed. The speaker’s wording and meaning are otherwise preserved.

All right, everybody. We’re here to talk about vacation rentals and how the media, especially photography, differs from a standard real-estate shoot. It is common for Airbnb and Vrbo hosts, and the agents they work with, to hire a real-estate photographer for a vacation-rental shoot. You may be asking, "Jason, aren’t you a real-estate photographer?" Yes, I am.

However, we offer our own set of packages for vacation rentals. We will dive into those packages at a later date, but right now I just want to tell you why it is important to have specific vacation rental options, because we do everything completely different than regular real estate.

First of all, the main difference with vacation rental shoots is the equipment that we use. Yes, we do get a lot of the same exteriors and interiors that are establishing shots to show the rooms and the property. That is all the same.

On top of that, we use different lenses with shallow apertures and longer focal lengths to give a nice atmospheric look into the home. You feel like you are in the place rather than us just showing you a room from one corner to another.

Showing you a room from one corner to another is a great way to sell a house with real estate, but it does not make it feel all that warm and inviting. If there is a nice couch or a plant, we want to highlight the feel of that space. We spend more time and energy swapping lenses and taking detailed shots. The shoots will typically have more photos.

It is really about the feel of the home. We do not care so much about how the transition is between the living room and the kitchen or whether the two bedrooms are next to each other. What is the bed like? Those pillows are not staged. That is how it is when you are going to be there. The same is true of the plants, games, and landscaping.

That is not real-estate staging, which is a great thing, by the way. I love good staging. But for a vacation rental, that stuff is what is going to be there when you are at that home.

You want to know that the blanket is soft. You want to know that the plant is freshly watered. You want to know what the feel of the space is, and that is where it is important to hire us to do a vacation-rental-focused shoot. Let us look at a couple of specific images here.

You have probably seen them going by already, but I will tell you exactly why they are different from standard real estate. This is not a traditional real estate photo. We are looking down a little bit over a chair, but it feels inviting. I want to sit in that chair by the fireplace. This gives you a nice look at the patio.

That is a pretty normal shot that you would get with a real estate shoot as well, but it is important for a vacation rental. This is a total detail shot. It does not show off the house in terms of real estate at all, but look at that nice chessboard.

Coming up here, you can tell that couch is smooth, the blanket is soft, and there is nice, soft lighting. It gives this atmospheric feel. You want to be there. The same is true for this kitchen. It is a relatively normal kitchen shoot, except it is framed with some foreground.

It is cozy, and you feel like you are in the space. That is the idea. Just like the first photo we saw, it puts you into the space. That is what we try to do with these photos.

Sometimes we also need to be a little more descriptive. There is a really nice knife set on offer for you to use at this vacation rental. You want to be able to see that. This is a nontraditional angle of this table.

You can see the patio table as well. It gives you a nice feeling of being there. This general idea continues through all of these. You know what it feels like to sit in it.

That is important for a vacation rental shoot. Showing what it feels like to be in the space can help potential guests understand the stay. This is a simple kitchen, but what you can do is focus on the little details. We have some nice matching soap and shallow depth of field. It looks comfortable.

Again, we would take this shot for real estate or a vacation rental, but you cannot pass up descriptive shots like this as well. There is laundry, a nice little mudroom, and a sink. We always want a blend of both.

Again, we have the pot on the stove. It is a nice feature. You have some knives. It is not staging. That is actually going to be there for you to use. That is a big deal to some people, especially a room like this that is nontraditional and up in the attic.

Those beds are the beds you will be sleeping in. There are two of them. You can see the room. It is important to gather the feel of that.

Thank you for sticking with us for my talk about vacation rental photography and why it is different from standard real estate. I am Jason May with Realiant Photography. See you in the next one.