How to Take Good Photos

Good photography can capture beautiful, well-lit and realistic photos of your listing. Your photos should show everything, including details that captivate and inspire travellers. That’s why we recommend a minimum of 24 photos of your listing. Your photos need to be of consistently high quality and high resolution.

They:

• Should take travellers on a visual journey through your listing.
• Reflect on the ambience and energy of your listing.
• Emphasise the culture and history of your listing.
• Show the kind of experience travellers can expect during their interaction.

When Taking Listing Photos:

• Use a digital camera.
• Shoot mainly landscape (horizontal) images – these look best on
  SafariQuest™.
• Photos must have a high resolution: at least 1366 x 768 pixels (the
  maximum uploadable file size for a single photo is 800KB).
• Take a minimum of 24 photos in total.
• Take pictures from a height of 100-160cm (3-5ft). This maintains
  consistency across images and feels neutral to the viewer’s
  perspective.
• Keep the focal length between 24 – 35mm, except for tours where telephoto lenses with higher focal can be used.
• Shoot from corners to add perspective and depth to your images.
• Try to capture as much of each listing as possible in your photos. Try not to crop out furniture, amenities or other details that would be important to the customer.
• Use a tripod to avoid a camera shake.

Uploading Photos

• When saving your photos for upload, use the following file naming
  conventions to maintain consistency in the system:
  • sq-h-hotel-name-ext-exterior-name-1-2-3, etc
    e.g. sq-h-sidai-resort-ext-pool-1.jpg
  • sq-h-hotel-name-int-interior-name-1-2-3, etc
    e.g. sq-h-sidai-resort-int-standard-room-1.jpg
  • sq-hr-holiday-rental-name-ext-exterior-name-1-2-3
    e.g. sq-hr-toms-crib-ext-pool-1.jpg
  • sq-hr-holiday-rental-name-int-interior-name-1-2-3
    e.g. sq-hr-toms-crib-int-bathroom-1.jpg
  • sq-t-tour-name-1-2-3
    e.g. sq-t-nairobi-national-park-half-day-tour-1.jpg
  • sq-cr-car-name-ext-exterior-name-1-2-3
    e.g. sq-cr-toyota-2022-highlander-ext-fog-lights-1.jpg
  • sq-cr-car-name-int-interior-name-1-2-3
    e.g. sq-cr-toyota-2022-highlander-int-usb-ports-1.jpg

Technical Requirements

The maximum uploadable file size for a single photo is 800KB. To ensure your listing photos are displayed optimally to potential customers, It’s best to avoid uploading:

• Grainy or pixelated photos
• Blurry or tilt-shift photos
• Over-processed photos
• Filters, strong contrast, over-saturations or excessive HDR
• Photo collages
• Watermarks or illustrations in photos
• Skewed, tilted, stretched or distorted photos

Things to Avoid

• Photos of guests, models or property owners
• Photos displaying nudity
• Photos of logos, branding, awards or contact details
• Reflections of people in mirrors and windows
• Photos with TVs turned on
• Photos showing technology that may date (telephones, alarm clocks,
  etc.)
• Extreme, wide-angle or fisheye lens photos
• Photos taken from overly high- or low angles
• Overly dark (underexposed) or bright (overexposed) photos
• Black-and-white photos

For details on what photos to take, download our Content Guide for Partners.