Rooms | Expectation | For hotels
The picture may flatter.
That is the job.
How far it can flatter without leaving reception with something to explain at check-in.
At a glance
- The commission
- to your briefflattering expressly included
- Wide angle
- yes, within reason15 square metres must not become 30 in the picture
- Moving things
- better notno suite furnishing in a standard room
- The view
- what you see without contortionsnot the look around the corner
- The decision
- is yoursI do not know how you will use the pictures later
- Settle beforehand
- which room is which categoryand what is really visible from the window
May a room picture flatter?
Yes. You have a room and you want to sell it – that is what the picture is for. If the space looks a little larger on it, a little tidier, in the best light: that is precisely what I am paid for.
A room picture is not a record. It is an invitation. The truth gets stretched in the process, and that is fine.
I photograph what you want to show, and on request I will put Uluru outside your window. What you intend to do with the pictures later I do not know – that decision is yours, not mine. So nothing here is a condition. It is what I have noticed across a lot of houses.
How far does the wide angle go?
There is no doing without it. A hotel room rarely has a corner from which a normal focal length takes it all in – the wall is at your back and there is no more distance to be had.
The limit is clear all the same: 15 square metres must not become 30 in the picture. The lens is there to make the room legible, not to stretch it.
Where does it stop?
Where the picture no longer shows this room but a different one. The line is not “nicer”, it is “not the same”.
Two cases come up again and again, and both end in the same place: at check-in.
Reception redeems what the picture promised.
Furniture from the suite
The classic one. For the shoot, what actually stands in the premium suite is moved into the standard room – the better armchair, the other lamp, the larger bed.
The picture gets better and the room does not. Whoever booked it walks into a space they did not order. That causes trouble with guests, reliably.
The sea view around the corner
The second case. A room is advertised with a sea view – and to see the sea you have to lean out of the window and look around the corner.
That is borderline, even though the picture invents nothing. What counts is the view a guest has while standing in the room.
Where the complaint arrives
Not me. I am long gone by then, and the pictures look good – that is exactly the problem.
It lands at reception, months later, with somebody from your house who did not take the picture. That is why this is written down: so the decision stays yours, but is not made blind.
What we settle beforehand
Which room belongs to which category. I cannot see that in the room itself. If the suite is to be shown, I photograph the suite.
And what can be seen from the window. With a partial sea view it helps to know beforehand – then I look for the angle that shows it best.
Common questions
Answers without detours
May the room look larger in the picture?
Yes. A little larger, a little tidier, in the best light – that is what the picture is for.
How much does the wide angle distort?
It makes the room legible, not larger. 15 square metres must not become 30 in the picture.
May we move things around for the shoot?
Within the room, gladly. What does not work is putting the suite's furnishing into a standard room. The guest then books something they will not get.
We have a sea view, but only from an angle.
Tell me beforehand and I will look for the angle that shows it best. Anyone who has to lean out of the window to see the sea notices it once they are in the room.
Who gets the trouble if a picture promises too much?
Your reception, at check-in. Not the photographer, and not the booking portal.
What should we tell you beforehand?
Which room is which category, and what is really visible from the window. Neither is something I can see in the room itself.
Which rooms should be shown?
Tell me which categories your house has – then each one gets a picture of its own.