8 Creative Ideas to Infuse Personality into Your Vacation Rental Photos
With so many properties available, it's hard to know where to start when photographing your vacation rental. Just like everyone else in the market, you want to have engaging images that capture potential guests' attention and showcase what your property has to offer. But if you truly want to stand out and take desirable photos, you need to give them personality and infuse a little magic into each shot.
These eight creative ideas will help you breathe life into your rental photos, transforming your holiday home or apartment into one that guests can’t wait to visit.
1. Use Lighting To Create A Mood
Lighting is essential for creating an atmospheric look and feel, and it’s a great way to bring out emotions in your photos. White lighting can bring a sense of calm and sophistication, while yellow lighting is reminiscent of warmth and relaxation. Decorative lamps can also assist in elevating a room's look and feel, creating an inviting atmosphere and a cozy glow.
Natural lighting is important, too. When photographing your space, choose a clear, sunny day to capture each room at its best. If you’re shooting outside at night, add fairy lights or strings of bulbs to make the space feel more festive and enticing.
2. Incorporate Textural and Visual Elements
It goes without saying that the eye is attracted to different textural elements. Textures create dimension and depth to rooms and turn a sterile rental into one that guests feel is inviting them to unwind and relax.
Using fluffy throws over couches or different patterned scatter cushions adds a homely and inviting feeling, as does a few extra blankets. Filling empty wall spaces with artwork will give rooms real personality, and showcasing local art pieces connects guests to your home and the area. Using artwork can assist in continuing a theme throughout a room as well as adding dimension and texture to the space, rounding off the look.
3. Add Seasonal Decor To Suit The Time Of Year
Whether it is summer or fall, guests will experience your rental home during different seasons. When taking photographs for specific times of the year, you can infuse them with personality by adding decor elements that reflect the changing seasons.
Use autumnal colors to depict a change in season, or add seashell accents along with hues of blue to lean into the beach holiday theme during the summer months.
Decorative pieces like snowflakes and wreaths with pops of silver and white give a home that wintery, festive season feel, and fresh flowers celebrate spring. Whatever the season, let your photographs showcase it.
4. Stage The Space
Staging is hugely popular when selling real estate, and it can help to add personality to your vacation rental photographs, too. To stage your images, set the room up for its intended use so that guests can imagine themselves in it. You can bring your images to life by setting the kitchen up with pots and pans on the stove, leaving open coffee table books in the living room, turning back the bedding, or setting the dining table.
Doing all of this will show guests how they can utilize your vacation rental and what staying there will be like.
5. Maximize The Use Of Creative Angles
Ever rented a holiday rental to find the space was smaller than you thought or not exactly what you had envisioned? This is what you want to avoid.
To ensure you take accurate photographs, experiment with the use of different angles to build a full perspective of the space you’re showcasing. By shooting from different angles, guests will get a full picture of the room in their minds and envision how they will interact with the space.
Include images of outdoor areas and the views they provide. You may want to capture the sunrise from the deck, a cityscape at night, or a snow-capped mountain in the distance. The more visual information a guest has, the more likely they are to feel a connection and make a booking.
6. Infuse Rooms With Pops Of Color
While classic neutral shades are always in fashion, adding pops of color will give your images a touch of personality and make your rental more appealing.
Wallpaper allows you to easily add color to any room. You don’t have to paper the whole room either; a feature wall is vibrant and eye-catching, and you can theme it to suit the style of the space. If wallpapering isn’t an option, you can paint a feature wall in a color that complements the overall aesthetic of the room.
Playing around with different colors and patterns also helps to create visual appeal and intrigue. Textiles with different palettes and patterns or carpets and rugs of different shapes and sizes are an excellent way to add character to your room.
Additionally, color can be added to any room by using statement furniture pieces. A bold lemon-colored couch in your living space adds a dash of fun, while a dark, sophisticated desk creates a more formal, serious feeling.
7. Include Lifestyle Images
Vacation rentals are designed to be lived in, but it can sometimes be difficult to picture yourself living in an unfamiliar space. Lifestyle images change that. They show a space in action and make it feel “real”.
Capture moments where people are organically enjoying the home, whether they’re dining al fresco in the yard, sitting in front of the fireplace playing board games, or simply lounging around the pool. If your rental is pet-friendly, add some pictures of furry friends.
8. Capture Unique Features
When you’re creating an online real estate portfolio, you need to capture a lot more than just the standard features of a home to attract attention. The same applies to photographing your vacation rental. Whether these features are quirky or period architecture, a wood-fired hot tub, a view that stretches for miles, or unusual sculptures or artwork, they all add personality to your listing.
Including photographs of what makes your vacation rental unique will make it more memorable, and it will stand out amongst the hundreds of other properties.
Make Your Vacation Rental Photographs Speak For Themselves
Whether you’re renting out a penthouse in New York, a condo in Miami, or a house in the Hamptons, your marketing photographs need to sizzle with personality. Use these eight tips to take photographs that bring the space to life and entice guests to make a booking.
