5 Tips on How to Prepare your Airbnb for a Photoshoot
1) Lighting, lighting, lighting
While you’re setting up your home and spending time in it, keep your eyes peeled! Watch for how and where the shadows fall. Is there a tree outside the window that casts pretty shadows on your new hardwood floors at a certain time of day? Do you get a view of a lake that glitters in the sun, or a hillside that turns pink at sunset? Or does your house get a beautiful sunrise that you’d love to feature in your listing?
Which direction does your house face? Does one side of the house get darker/less natural light after a certain time of day?
These are all information that’s helpful to know prior to our shoot so that I can advise on what time is best to schedule our shoot for. (Yes, I’ll get there at the crack of dawn if sunrise is a feature!)
2) Think about the lifestyle you want to portray
With vacation rentals, you’re essentially selling a lifestyle that your home offers to renters, so styling comes into play a lot more than real estate photography (read more on the differences between real estate and interior photography). If discussed beforehand, I’ll help to set up little “vignettes” in your space that tell a story, but you might want to think about this in advance so that we can make sure to have the “props” available prior to the shoot. Such vignettes can include:
an open laptop with a cup of hot tea next to it on the coffee table
a record player with a spinning vinyl in it
two wine glasses and cookies by a fire
a book and a lit candle on the nightstand
a beach towel and a pair of sunglasses tossed on a chair by the pool
Use these as inspiration ideas, and let me know before our shoot if there are any specific “scenes” you’d like to set up! :)
>> Read more about lifestyle photos and get some ideas here <<
3) Staging & Styling
I’m not gonna claim to be an interior designer, and you’ve probably put in a sh*t ton of effort into staging and styling your place for guests already, so I’m not going to go into detail on how to do this. However, a couple of things that will go a long way to prepare for the shoot are:
Straightening curtains & blinds (iron them, if necessary!)
Ironing bedsheets (Take out all the creases in them, especially if they’re new out of the box!)
Putting out new paper towel & toilet paper rolls (you’ll be surprised how often this doesn’t happen)
Flip pillows so that the opening of the pillowcases face towards the middle of the bed, not out.
Make sure all artificial light inside the house are the same — or similar — light temperatures. This will help with the color cast on your furniture!
Hide cords (You wouldn’t believe how much time I spend either trying to hide them during the shoot, or photoshopping them out in post! If there is a way to hide time using cord organizers or stuffing them underneath furniture, this will go a long way in helping my process and ultimately, your photos!)
I’ll be on the lookout for all of these too and will do my best to straighten and level things as much as possible. For the sake of time, however, it would be super helpful if all of these were done beforehand!
Secondly, less is more! I know you probably want to feature all 5 coffee machines at your coffee station, however my advice is — pick one or two to highlight, and tuck the rest away. When there are too many things laid out, it makes the space (and photo!) feel cluttered in my opinion, and it also tends to get lost in the mix rather than stand out as a highlight.
4) Set aside any welcome gifts or notes for photos
If you have prepared welcome gifts for guests, make sure to set them aside for photos as well. These are a huge and important part of your guest experience, so it’s definitely important to have photos of these in your listing as well! Or at least your social media… if it’s not something you’re prepared to do long-term ;)
5) Clean, clean, clean!
The camera picks up everything! A tiny fingerprint on your fridge or hard water stains on your faucet isn’t going to cut it. Make sure to clean all appliances, windows, mirrors, faucets… any reflective surface really, and double-check that they’re free of spots. Even the inside of sinks!
Finally, I know this article said 5 tips… I lied. ;)
6) Label light switches… or make sure they’re easy to find!
I know, depending on who you are, you may think this either excessive or unnecessary… or both. But I promise it will help a ton! For every shot I take, I’ll take several exposures with the lights on AND off. Sometimes, it has taken me a solid minute just to find all the switches to lamps and overhead lights to turn them off just for the photo! And while a minute may not seem like a lot to you, it does add up and ultimately slows the shoot down. Which, in turn, may affect how much daylight we’ll have left to work with, especially towards the end of the shoot. Do a test yourself and see how many light switches there are in one particular room (including side table lamps or floor lamps!) and how fast you can turn them all on and off. It’s a huuuuge bonus if you can limit everything to just a single light switch! ;)
This article by airbnb also provides a helpful checklist that you can refer to. In general, I help with most of these things before/during the shoot, so don’t worry too much if you forgot to level your towels in the bathroom!