Take a Photo of Someone Else’s Hotel…

A question came up at a networking event recently that got me thinking about how hoteliers could get started taking their own hotel photographs. A guy came up to me and asked how to start. He’d been taking photos of his own hotel and they just didn’t match the quality of his rivals. It was annoying him because he didn’t think he was a bad photographer, but he just couldn’t get it right.

I asked a few of our team and they came up with a canny answer – go take a photo of one of your rivals’ hotels.

Why would this help?

Well when you look at photos that have made it to publication or even just on the web, it’s unlikely that they’ve got there completely unaided. They’ll have set up lighting, probably moved things out of the way and then when they’ve finally taken the photo, it may have been through PhotoShop.

If you try to replicate the photography of someone else, you’ll be surprised at how much work goes into it. It may look like that photo taken at a jaunty angle was a “quick snap”, but it could have taken hours to set up and then process.

So, before you give up on your own skills, try copying someone else’s and compare the results!