Some tips regarding your photos!
A picture is worth a thousand words and we couldn’t agree more! It tells a story, creates a feeling, and gives an impression. Therefore, it is so important to capture the beauty of your nature house in the best way. When guests are searching for a vacation home on our website, the photos of your nature house are the first thing they see. This first impression often decides if a guest clicks on the advertisement or not. When you have already convinced a potential guest to click on your ad, it is very likely that they will consider booking your accommodation. For this reason, we have summarized a number of tips on how to get the most out of your photos.
These guidelines are intended to help you, they are not a must. Just choose the tips which are easy for you to apply. Most importantly, have fun taking the photos and creating your advertisement!
Tip 1: Choose a variety of photos
We recommend that you upload a minimum of 10 photos. At least one photo should show the outside of your nature house. In addition, guests appreciate seeing pictures of all rooms (bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, etc.) and your garden. Do you have anything special on your property, such as a big terrace, an outside cooking place or a hot tub? Include photos of these! By choosing diverse pictures you can save text space by letting the photos speak. Finally, guests see it as an added value when the floor plan of the nature house is included in the pictures.
For best results, we recommend using horizontal photos of at least 1008 x 605 pixels. This ensures that each photo is fully displayed in your advertisement. Keep in mind that if you upload vertical photos, the photos will be automatically cropped by our website. Please make sure that you only use high-quality photos that are sharp and not blurry. If you do not have a good camera or phone, maybe you can ask your family members or neighbors to take pictures for you. Good to know: the first photo will appear in the search results, when people search for a nature house. Therefore, make sure that this is your best photo to convince potential guests to click on your ad!
Tip 2: Take detailed and ambient photos of the surroundings
Our guests are nature lovers and the surrounding nature will be one of the highlights during their stay. Therefore, include photos of your favorite places to visit around your nature house. Is it close to a national park? Make sure to share that. Take pictures of the most beautiful sights, a hiking trail or a bicycle route.
Tip 3: Choose a logical order
When choosing the order of your pictures it is best to sort them from crucial to nice-to-have. As the first photo we would therefore recommend to choose a charming photo of the exterior of your nature house. When taking the picture of the exterior of your nature house, make sure that your house and nature are the most important focus points in your photo. Try to avoid cars or a lot of other houses to appear in the picture. Follow up with pictures from all interior rooms as well as the garden or terrace. Finally, you can close with photos of the surroundings.
Tip 4: Make use of natural light
The best photos are taken in daylight. It gives a photo natural depth, color and contrast. Therefore, open curtains and windows to let as much natural light as possible enter the room. For the best light and a special atmosphere, it is recommended by photographers to take photos at the golden hour. This is around sunrise and sunset (best timing is half an hour before). In contrast, it is advised to avoid midday sun, because it is too bright, which does not look nice in photos.
Is it a cloudy day? Then it is better to take the pictures on another, sunny day. Using a flash can help, only you shouldn't see its reflection in the photo. Also take care that no item in the photo is overexposed when using a flash. Is your house beautifully lit at night? Make sure to include this in the pictures as well. This way the guest can see how beautiful your nature house is at any time! For such photos, the blue hour (30-50 min after sunset) is most suitable, because then the sky has an intense and special blue colour.
Tip 5: Try to take pictures from different angles
Angles are important to consider in every photo. When taking a picture from a corner, you widen the space which gives a better idea of the real size of the room. In contrast, a photo taken with your back facing a wall makes the room appear smaller than it is. To give a good idea of how the room looks, upload photos from different angles. You can also try how the photos look like when you step on a chair or bend down while taking it. Just try what works best for your nature house.
Tip 6: Have a nice composition with a focal point
Great pictures usually have a clear foreground, a focal point, and a background. Where is the focus of the photo? For example, think about your living room. In addition to taking a photo of the whole room, it is also nice to add some detailed photos. This way you bring the focus to different areas of the room. For instance bring the focus of one photo to the book shelf or the vase of flowers on the table.
As you know, our guests are nature lovers. Can nature be seen from the window in the living room? Then be sure to capture this in the photo. This way, you create depth in the photo and let the visitor see more than just the living room. By doing this, you maintain the guests’ attention, because there is more to discover in your photo.
Tip 7: Clean up, decorate and be authentic
It sounds very logical but we want to remind you anyway. Clean up the house neatly, patch the windows and let the house shine. Decoration creates an atmosphere, also in the photos. Let yourself be inspired by e.g. magazines. In the nearest thrift store you can find plenty of decorations. Think of vases, paintings, decorative pillows or a rug. Also a set-up table looks appealing. Complete your vacation house by adding these finishing touches. Just be careful to not fill the rooms with too much decoration to keep a calm atmosphere.
A tidy and appealing house convinces guests to book. However, it is important that the photos match reality. Disappointed guests mean bad worth-of-mouth and reviews.
Tip 8: Small extras to keep in mind
Choose authentic photos which do not appear staged, especially when including people in pictures. Are dogs welcome in your vacation home? Then it is nice to include a photo of your house with a dog in front. Then it is immediately clear that your nature house is dog-friendly.
Last but not least, sometimes it can also be a good idea to hire someone to take the photos for you. A photographer is specialized to capture the full beauty of a nature house. We understand that this initially causes some costs. However, having professional pictures has high potential to generate more bookings in the future, because you show guests the full potential of your vacation house.