STR Photography

Short term rental photography is a different job from listing photography, because the buyer is different. A guest is booking an experience for a week, not buying a house, and the photographs have to answer their questions rather than a purchaser's. Rental shoots across Tampa Bay start at $225.

What guests actually look for

Sleeping capacity is the first filter on every booking platform, so every bedroom gets photographed, including the ones with bunks and sofa beds, and the arrangement has to be legible rather than implied. A listing that says it sleeps ten and shows four beds loses bookings to one that shows all of them.

After that it is outdoor space, the pool, the kitchen and the view. Guests book the pool deck far more than they book the primary suite, which is the reverse of how a sale listing is weighted, and the shoot is built accordingly.

The cover photo carries the listing

Booking platforms show one horizontal image in the search grid, and that single frame does most of the work. It needs to be bright, horizontal, and show the single best thing the property has: the pool, the water, the view, or the room that makes the place distinctive.

Rental markets across Tampa Bay

The barrier islands are the core of it. Properties in Madeira Beach, Treasure Island, Clearwater Beach and Anna Maria compete on the walk to the sand, so an aerial showing the house and the Gulf in one frame answers the question every guest asks first.

Inland, the vacation home market around Davenport and Kissimmee is theme park driven and behaves commercially. There the games room, the themed bedrooms, the screened pool and the resort amenities are the product, and coverage of the community facilities belongs in the set because guests book the resort as much as the house.