Taking good photos of your property

Photos decide the booking before the text is read. A recent phone is enough: what makes the difference is the light, where you stand and how carefully each room is prepared. Allow a morning.

Your phone is enough, set up properly

• Wipe the lens with a soft cloth. One fingerprint is enough to haze every photo.
• Turn on the grid in the camera settings: it helps keep walls straight.
• Leave HDR on automatic. It balances a dark room against a bright window.
• Stay on the main lens (×1). The ultra-wide (×0.5) makes rooms look bigger than they are and bends the walls: the guest finds out on arrival, and that is a disappointed review. Keep it for a small shower room you cannot show any other way.
• No zoom, no flash, no portrait mode. To frame tighter, step closer.
• Hold the phone horizontally. A landscape photo shows the room, and it fills the frames of your site as well as those of the platforms.

Light: where it should come from

This is the rule that changes everything: the light comes from behind you or from the side, never from in front.

• Window behind you or to the side: the room is lit and the colours are true.
• Window facing you: that is backlight. The room turns dark and the window becomes a white rectangle. Change your angle.
• If the window has to be in the picture, because the view is an asset, tap the screen on a wall of the room so the phone sets the exposure for the inside, and let HDR do the rest. A drawn sheer curtain also softens the window.

Open every shutter and every curtain. Then switch the lamps on, even in daylight: bedside lamps, pendants over the table, wall lights. That is what makes a room feel warm. Just avoid mixing bulbs of very different colours in the same picture.

The right time depends on which way each room faces. An east-facing room is photographed in the morning, a west-facing one in the afternoon: plenty of light, without the sun shining straight in. A patch of sunlight on the floor or the bed turns into a white blotch; wait for it to move. For interiors, a bright overcast sky is the best weather of all: the light is soft and even.

Where to stand in a room

• In a corner or in the doorway, so that two or three walls show. Facing a wall, a room looks flat and small.
• At chest height, about a metre off the floor. At eye level you see too much floor and the ceiling looks low. In the kitchen, at worktop height.
• Phone held straight. Walls and doors must stay vertical. If the top of the room does not fit, step back rather than tilting the phone up.
• Two photos of the main rooms: a wide one that shows the whole room, and a closer one on what makes it pleasant (the fireplace, the reading corner, the table by the window).

Room by room

First of all, tidy as for an arrival: bed made, surfaces clear, bins and cleaning products out of shot. Remove what belongs to you rather than to the guest: family photos, post, shoes, fridge magnets.

• The living room. Stand in the corner opposite the main window. Cushions plumped, throw folded, television off. A fire in the fireplace if you let in winter.
• The kitchen. Empty worktop, apart from a fruit bowl or a coffee maker. Show what the guest is looking for: oven, hob, dishwasher, the table where you eat.
• The bedrooms. All of them, even the smallest. Photograph the bed at an angle from a corner at its foot, bedside lamps on, sheets smooth. The guest must be able to tell who will sleep where.
• The bathrooms. Lid down, towels folded, no personal products. Stand at an angle to the mirror so that you do not appear in it.
• Outside. The front of the house, the terrace with the table laid, the garden, the pool (cover off, clear water, no hose or robot in it), and the view.
• A few details, no more than three: the beams, a coffee on the terrace, a corner of the garden. They set the mood; too many hide what matters.

Do not leave out the small shower room or the windowless bedroom. A missing photo worries a guest more than an average one, and disappointment on arrival costs a review.

Outside: sun and season

Photograph the front of the house when the sun lights it head-on or at three-quarters: in the morning for an east-facing front, late afternoon for a west-facing one. A front in shade looks grey. Avoid the midday sun, which flattens everything and casts hard shadows.

Late afternoon is the best time for the terrace and the pool. And a photo taken a quarter of an hour after sunset, with every light on inside and out, often makes a lovely cover photo.

Interiors do not depend on the season; exteriors do. A covered pool, bare trees or a yellowed lawn do the property no favours. If you are preparing your site in winter:

1. photograph the inside now;
2. add one or two outdoor views on a fine day, leaving out the pool if it is closed;
3. redo the outside in spring or early summer, and replace the winter photos.

Your site can be online and taking bookings in the meantime. You change the photos whenever you like, from your dashboard.

Before uploading: sort and retouch

Twenty well-chosen photos beat sixty. Keep the best of each angle, at least one per room, two for the main rooms.

Retouch lightly. Straightening, cropping, brightening a little: yes. Filters, a replaced sky, an object that really exists erased: no. The guest compares the photo with what they find on arrival.

Upload your photos straight from your phone: the site resizes and compresses them for you. There is no need to shrink them yourself, you would lose quality. If a photo is refused, it is usually over the maximum size: take it again in standard format rather than very high definition.

To choose the cover photo and the order of the rest, see Choosing your cover photo and ordering the rest.

Your photos are not yours?

It is common when the photos were taken by a letting agency, a concierge service, a photographer or the previous owner. Owning the property gives you no rights over the photos: they belong to whoever took them, and the permission they gave covers only the use agreed in writing, often the listing on a single platform.

Start by checking the invoice or the contract: it may already allow free use to promote the property. If not, ask for permission. An email is enough, and it is often granted:

Hello, we would like to use the photos you took of [property name] on our property's own booking website, in addition to the current listing. Could you confirm your agreement by return email? We will credit you by name if you wish. Many thanks.

Permission for two or three outdoor photos, while you take your own, is easier to obtain than a full transfer of rights. While you wait for the answer, follow the two-step method above: the inside now, the outside in the good season.

Having your photos taken by a professional

A professional shoot is mostly worth it for the cover and the outside, at the right time of year. It also settles the question of rights for good: the photos are taken for you.

Our partner: Celvo. We work with Celvo, which specialises in photos and films of holiday lets, on the ground and by drone, in Occitanie: the house in its landscape, the pool, the garden, the terrace in the late afternoon light. It is a company we know well: you get quality images, taken by someone who knows your site. They are put in place for you, the film at the top of the page, and they also work on your listings and your social media.

Mon Gîte Direct subscribers get a discount on every Celvo package (the Duo offer). Prices are published, with travel covered as set out in the offer's conditions: see the Duo offer and ask for a date.

If your property is far from Occitanie, or if you would rather use a photographer near you, here is how to get your money's worth:

• Give them the list of photos on this page, room by room, and which way the house faces.
• Choose the day and time together, according to the sun on the front and the season.
• Ask in writing for the photos to be usable everywhere: your site, every platform, your social media, your brochures, with no time limit. That is what saves you from finding yourself without photos one day.

The checklist to keep at hand

• Lens wiped, grid on, ×1 lens, phone horizontal
• Shutters open, lamps on, window behind you or to the side
• In a corner, at chest height, phone straight
• Every room tidied, nothing personal
• Every bedroom and every bathroom
• The front when the sun lights it, the terrace and pool in late afternoon
• The rights to every photo

Frequently asked questions