A Busy Year

One of the joys and one of the burdens of doing Hotel Photography, is that we travel...a lot.  As such, I've fallen into a pattern when I have to plan a trip.  I tend to do my trip planning on google maps before I start figuring out anything else.  I do this because I often discover that it's easier to drive between cities or that a slightly longer drive to the airport can save me the hassles of a connecting flight.  Often I also discover that there is a national park or other sight that may be worth visiting while I'm in town and taking a later flight home.  I save my old travel maps and while planning out my travels in January came across a feature that allowed  me to layer  the maps I've created to see a map of all the places I've traveled this year.   Seeing all of these spots graphically displayed  makes me realize the scope of this wonderfully productive year- and this doesn't even include my partner Christine's travels, which in addition to spots all over this country, took her to India twice as well as Albania.  Our business has been growing in leaps and bounds and while we've been keeping our focus on our clients the blog has been left wanting.   Next year, so far, promises to be even busier for both of us and we're looking forward to several exciting new projects that will take us to the sun and surf in Miami Beach and powdery slopes of Utah.  We'll be sure to post some updates from the road.

Client's website wins Webby Award

We just heard that Orphmedia, who designed the Bryant Park Hotel's website with our photography was awarded a 2013 Webby award for Best Visual Design- Aesthetic.   The Webby award is to the web design world what the Oscars are to the Movie industry with the difference that there are many more people vying for a Webby than an Oscar.

Although we aren't getting the award directly for the photography we are thrilled to have been part of the visual team contributing to the website and congratulate Peter Orphanus and everyone else at Orphmedia.

We photographed the bright and airy rooms, meeting and public spaces as well as the unique 3D capable theater for this property.  Here are some of the images:

What's Cooking good Looking?

I have photographed food for over twenty years.  Food has always been a passion in my life that was passed down to me by my father.   When I was a child, my dad and I didn't bond over a ball game- we made pasta, plum tarts anything else that struck our fancy.   During these cooking sessions dad passed along skills that have made me a confident cook.  It was a natural progression to combine my passions for food and photography.

Food is a basic necessity and  should be pretty easy to sell,  and for the most part it is- people have to eat.   But how do you expand on market share and increase sales?   Show them the food to engage them.    Humans have a visceral reaction to images of food.   Make it look fabulous and you'll draw them to  the restaurant or get them to call room service.   They are already tired from traveling, work or a day out and about.  Make it easy for them to choose to stay in and relax.   Stock photos can work to some degree, but showing potential diners Your food makes the biggest difference.    The prospect of great food can also be the deciding point for brides and other event planners working with your banquets sales team.   

When we shoot food for marketing in hotels and restaurants we keep a very editorial look that makes it appear to be excerpted from the pages of a food or travel magazine. 

Often these food shoots will happen in conjunction with the photography for the rest of the property, but we also do Food & Beverage only shoots for properties wanting to increase sales in those areas.

It's a simple matter of show and tell.    If you don't show them what you have to offer, they won't know.   Independent restaurants know that they have to have images to accompany press releases, entice people on their website and get media attention.  Yet many hotels often under serve the marketing of  this aspect of their property and are not seeing the full potential of their Food & Beverage dept.

A recent development, is the need to control your image to some degree in social media.   Most online review sites allow customers to post photographs along with their comments, most often with truly mediocre results.  The photography most often uses  smart phone with a dirty lens ( when was the last time you cleaned the lens on your phone before taking a photo?).  Often it is in a dark room and they use flash- the same light that makes fabulous starlets look blanched and strung out when they are caught by paparazzi leaving a nightclub late at night.  Having beautiful photography of your restaurant, lounge, food and drinks that YOU can post, puts the other customer's photography in perspective and give you back the control of your public image.

Going Mobile and creating the Big Picture Part 1

Nope, not referencing the the Who song from 1971.   Instead I'm bringing to point the fact that for most business on the web, including our own, we are  faced with a whole new internet.   One that looks and behaves differently,  customers use it differently and presents a whole new set of requirements  to maintain effective marketing campaigns.  The devices have shrunk and they are often being used on the go or in between other activities.

First of all, many of the technologies that used to work wonders on websites are now essentially defunct such as Flash™, which is supported on a few browsers but not by Apple's™ products.  HTML5, which has emerged as the new standard,  seems to provide many of the functions that  Flash™ does, but simply converting an existing website to the new technology won't do.   It has to be designed for the new user and devices.

Websites that were designed  three or more years ago, were mostly built on the premise that a mobile user would use a "mobile friendly" shadow site and this emerged as a way to serve those browsers. That is if mobile browsing even existed when the site was created. No one was thinking in terms of today's dominance of mobile devices and the change in guests research and booking behavior.  Today you can create an html5 site which is navigable from either a PC browser or a mobile device, create a stand alone mobile website or both.

Google expects mobile travel research on phones to increase 68% and 180% on tablets next year.   On PCs research growth is expected to be 0%.   40% of leisure travelers and 36% of business travelers book overnight accommodations (hotels) from their mobile phone's browser instead of on apps.

In the same study Google asked what the main reasons for not booking on a mobile device were, with the number one reason being that the websites are hard to see/read/navigate on a mobile device.  For more information on this check out the Google study.

  

What this boils down to for anyone creating images or using them on a website, is that the interface on a mobile device and the functionality of the website have become more critical for the small screens.  Properties that haven't already done so need to make sure their online presence works seamlessly and effectively with mobile devices and that the functionality allows guests to browse and book smoothly.  

Photography is playing a more critical role in communicating who a hotel/resort/spa is with its' ability to  convey mountains of information that would take pages to cover in text (text that is hard to read on a small screen).  The images need to be proportionally larger on the small screens than they would for a PC screen and they also need to be easily navigable and quick to load.   A prospective guest needs to have a positive impression of your property after just a few seconds of flipping through a gallery.  Every image is critical starting with the first, which must compel the viewer to the second and then the third image etc.    The old adage that  "a photographer is only as good as his/her last image" applies to hoteliers in this case as well.  Each image must engage the prospect and lead them further into your properties online presence while creating the "curb appeal" you want to project.  

The new mobile technology, while changing the dynamic of how prospective guests browse for hotels, also is a boon to anyone marketing with images.    These devices have wonderful screen quality which is sharper than most  PC screens and the touch screens  make it extremely easy to create an intuitive interface for your site.

More to come.   Next we'll explore how to plan your image.