How to DIY Your Own Airbnb Photos
Taken on iPhone (not actually delivered to client!)
GASP, I know! As a photographer, this feels a little like blasphemy to write, but my ultimate goal here is to help you get the best photos possible for your home, whether it be through me, another photographer, or you doing it yourself!
It physically paaains me to see photos on airbnb listings that feature an otherwise beautiful home in either drab/bad lighting, or unflattering angles, or both! It pains me because this is the first impression potential guests will have of your home, a place you’ve spent so much time renovating, furnishing, and/or decorating, only to have it all displayed in a way that doesn’t do your work justice (OR speak to the potential experience a guest can have!).
Although I highly encourage you to get professional photos done, the reality is, some of you will still probably want to DIY your own photos — maybe for the entire set, or just a select few rooms as you continue to upgrade or add new touches over time.
Before I get into it, keep in mind: the camera you already have is the best camera!
Photography gear is expensive. When you add up the cost of camera bodies, multiple lenses, lighting, tripods, memory cards, editing software and more, you could send a child to school! Unless you have the funds to invest in the gear AND education on how to use this stuff, use what you already have :)
iPhones and Androids these days have excellent cameras with incredible AI software that helps balance exposure and colors, and often produce amazing results straight out of camera. I especially love the new wide angle lenses on iPhones for the wide room shots.
If you have a good ol’ point and shoot, you could use that too!
**For the purposes of this article, most photos used here are taken on my trusty ol’ iPhone & edited in Lightroom Mobile… unless otherwise stated :)
Now that you’ve identified a camera you can use, here are my top 5 tips on how to DIY your own Airbnb photos:
1) Clean & Declutter
The first step to… well, anything, is prep - so start by prepping each room! Make sure crinkles and creases in bedsheets are ironed out, remove any distracting clutter on tables and floors, and, if you really want to step it up a notch, prepare little vignettes in each room.
>> Read more on how to prepare your airbnb for a shoot here :) <<
2) Use natural light as much as possible
Lighting is a big topic in photography, and knowing how to read and control light is part of what a professional photographer will bring to the table. It’s impossible to explain it all here, but I’ll do my best to break down what to look out for.
Unless you’re going for a moody twilight scene to accentuate the cozy vibes of your cabin in the evening, shoot during the daytime. Shooting in low-light conditions is tricky, so if you’re DIY-ing your own photos, I’d say the rule of thumb is: always shoot during the day. And turn off your flash!
Open up curtains, and — you’re probably not going to spend hours photographing your home so maybe this won’t matter as much, but just in case you do — start with the room that loses daylight first! Even better, take note of the time of the each room looks the best in, and photograph that room at that time.
Look out for shadows
A big part of lighting is about creating shadow, or knowing where to let the shadows fall. Look out for ugly or distracting shadows that might be falling on furniture or floors, and see if there’s a way to fix it. This might mean looking for your light source AND object that’s casting the shadow, and either a) diffusing the light source somehow (either by turning it off, or putting a sheer curtain or material over it) or b) moving the object. Sometimes that shadow might even be yourself!
You might also want to think: what are the vibes you’re going for? If your home is bright and modern, look out for corners that might be a little too shadowy. If you’re going for a moody, cozy, cabin vibe, it might be okay to let some areas of the photo fall to shadow. Use your own artistic judgment in this case! :)
Look out for blown-out windows
This typically happens when you’re shooting inside a dark room with a bright window in frame. The camera is trying to balance exposures, and if you’re exposing for what’s inside the room, the window(s) can often be blown out. With today’s phone camera technology, I’ve noticed that the AI software helps to balance out exposures and blown-out windows are much more manageable!
However, there may still be instances where this happens, so here are some ideas on how to fix this:
Oof this is a rough one. See how that window is completely blown out because of the huge difference in exposure between the inside and outside?
Turn on interior lights so that you balance out the exposure a little more. This way, the camera isn’t trying so hard to compensate for the difference in exposures between the two parts of the image.
Change your frame so that the window isn’t in the frame. This way, the camera doesn’t have that insanely bright part of the image to meter for.
If you reaaaally want to attempt editing and combining exposures, set up your phone/camera on a tripod. Take a photo exposing for the inside of the room (by tapping on the part of the image you want to expose for), then take a second photo exposing for the window (by tapping on the window in your photo). You now have two photos of identical composition — take it into Photoshop and merge them! I won’t go into detail on how to do so here, but you can probably find plenty of youtube tutorials that might be helpful :)
If all else fails, choose which part of the image is most important to you, and expose for that. This might mean the windows are completely blown out, but at least you have the part that you want to be properly exposed! Or if the view outside the window is what’s most important, then expose for that! The rest of the room that’s in the frame might be completely UNDER-exposed, but that’s okay!
Should you turn on indoor lights?
Others might debate me on this, but in my opinion, this ultimately comes down to you. I’ve seen it before where lights that are turned on actually look worse than off, either because a) of the light fixture itself, b) the shadows it casts on the objects around it, or c) the color temperature doesn’t match the other lights in the room.
Conversely, I’ve also seen it where lights on in a room helps to accentuate the furniture and decor, and adds to the mood of the room. If you are good at lighting design and were able to incorporate your lights cohesively into the room, then yes, try shooting with the lights on!
You could also take two versions — one with lights on and one with lights off — to see which you prefer :) For comparison’s sake, put your camera/phone on a tripod, so that your shots with lights on and off are identical and there aren’t any other variable factors affecting the results.
For rooms with NO daylight (for example, some bathrooms with no windows), definitely shoot with lights on!
3) Make sure Your Photos are Straight & in Focus
Ooh this is a big one, and probably one that bugs me the most! Start paying attention to vertical lines in your photo. To help yourself with this, turn on grids. Grids can help you position an image and tell if it’s straight.
For iPhone: Go to Settings > Camera; Toggle your phone’s grid to On.
For Android: Launch the camera app, go to Settings, scroll down, and switch the Grid Lines option to On.
Use the lines as guides to make sure door frames, window frames, cabinets etc are straight! In this case, use the horizontal lines as guides to make sure table-tops are level too.
By “straight”, I’m referring to vertical lines such as walls, table legs, sides of fireplaces, cabinets, even things like your paper towel holder (the type that stands on the counter). This sometimes means just tilting your camera up/down slightly, making sure you aren’t holding your camera at a canted angle, moving the whole camera altogether, or even standing on a step-stool to get to items a little higher up so that you’re not tilting up instead.
For the most part, you’ll want to keep your camera at the level of your subject, parallel to the floor. If you need to get higher, physically move your camera to a higher vantage point, however be careful about not tilting it or holding it at an angle, which can cause distortions in your image.
It’s recommended to shoot into corners as this will make the room appear larger; however if you’re shooting a room straight on, whatever’s horizontal should be horizontal and level. This could be bed headboards, tables, counters, where the walls meet your ceiling and floor… etc.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, such as when you’re taking a top-down shot from a loft into your living area below, or when you’re photographing a tall building from ground level.
In this case, since this was taken from a second story, the walls naturally won’t be vertically straight. However, everything that’s horizontal was made sure to be leveled. (Photo taken on my Sony camera)
Finally, there are few things worse than a blurry or out of focus photo! Consider using a tripod, or at least use two hands to hold your phone or camera to keep it as steady as possible, especially if you are dealing with low-light conditions. Use the autofocus feature of your camera or tap on the screen of your smartphone to choose a point to focus on.
This was achieved just by bringing my phone physically close to the plant. Make sure to have some distance between the subject you’re trying to focus on and whatever’s behind it in order to achieve this effect.
4) Get up close to details & use portrait mode (if you have that!)
You know those photos of close-up objects with the rest of the background blurred out? One of the advantages of having a pro-level camera is being able to control that blur, and how much of your subject you want to be in focus. However, a regular iPhone camera can still achieve a similar effect, even without being in portrait mode!
This happens when you bring an object so close to your lens, essentially forcing the camera to focus on that, while letting the rest of the background fall out of focus. So if you want to highlight certain details, such as the texture of your sheets or a shiny new coffee machine in your kitchen, physically get up close to it!
And no, it doesn’t work by taking a wide shot, then cropping it down, OR zooming in from a distance. I’m personally not a fan of digitally zooming in on your smartphone’s camera since it really messes up with the quality of the image. However if your smartphone actually has a longer lens (like the 3x lens on the latest iPhone), you could use that!
Like lighting, knowing how to use lenses and reading distances of objects to the lens is part of what a professional photographer brings to the table. Without getting into a full photography lesson here, my biggest advice is to experiment. Experiment with what you already have. Get up close, go wide, try different things to see the effects they achieve.
5) Get a variety of angles & shots
Don’t just take wide shots (that’s what a real estate photographer does!). Grab a variety! Outside the house, inside the house, wide angles from opposing corners of the room, close-up details of personal touches you’ve included…
One technique I like to use is what I call “Zooming In”. This doesn’t mean zooming your camera in, but rather, it means starting by taking wide shots, then slowly moving in to the details and physically getting up close to them.
My biggest tip to all this: Be Intentional. This helps with having a variety of shots that aren’t messy and all over the place, but that are instead cohesive and tell a story.
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Check out this article by airbnb for more helpful tips and visuals!
There are SO many other little things that professional photographers will look out for during a shoot, such as how certain things are angled toward the camera, balancing exposures and color temperatures, artistic compositions with foreground and more. However, I hope that these tips will come in handy if you’re planning on taking your own photos for your airbnb!
All that said, SHOULD you get professional photos done if you can? Yes, absolutely! I know I’m a biased source, so here are some stats that might hopefully help you decide:
On average, property owners with professional photos increase their earnings by 40%, have a 24% jump in bookings, and are able to raise their nightly rate by 26% (source: Airbnb)
Only 15% of vacation rental owners are currently using professional photography services (source: Airdna; Learnairbnb survey), which means you will still stand out from the hundreds of thousands of listings that are still not using a pro.
Travelers are 83% more likely to inquire about a booking on listings with 20+ photos (source: FlipKey), so having a full and well-rounded set of photos is essential.
Just my opinion, but I personally think it kinda sucks when - after putting in all that effort into setting up your home - the photos just aren’t translating it. First impressions do matter, after all!