Hotel and resort photography in the city that sells rooms for a living.

Guest rooms and suites

The room is what you are selling and it has the least forgiving geometry in the building. Small, mixed light sources, a window several stops brighter than the interior, and a bed that reads badly from almost every angle except one.

The Drey Hotel and Montage Beverly Hills.

• Shoot immediately after housekeeping finishes. A room is at its best for about twenty minutes. Coordinate with the rooms division rather than just asking for a key, or you will be making beds yourself.
• Hold the window. A blown-out white rectangle where the Strip view should be is the most common failure in Vegas room photography, and it throws away the exact thing guests pay a premium for.
• Every rate category needs its own photographs. Selling a standard king with images of the suite generates arrival-day complaints and refund requests. This is a revenue problem, not an aesthetic one.
• Straight verticals, always. Converging walls read as amateur instantly in interiors and no amount of styling recovers it.
• Shoot the view as its own frame. In Vegas the view is often the most valuable thing in the room. It deserves an exposure built for it rather than being a bright smear behind the bed.
• Get the clean version and the lived-in one. Empty frames for the booking platforms, styled frames for your own channels.

Pools, amenities and exteriors

The aspirational half of the library, and in Las Vegas almost entirely a scheduling problem. From late spring through September, midday sun here is unusable: brutal shadows, squinting subjects and water that goes flat and white.

Village Beach Club, The Drey Hotel and Montage Beverly Hills.

• Pools want the last ninety minutes of light. Water reads best when the sun is low and deck lighting is beginning to come up. That narrow window should anchor the entire day's schedule, not be squeezed in at the end.
• An empty pool looks closed. Two or three people placed deliberately is the difference between an amenity and a rectangle of water. More than that and it reads as crowded, which in Vegas is its own kind of warning.
• Twilight exteriors beat daylight ones every time. The fifteen minutes when the sky still holds colour and the property lighting is on is when a Vegas building looks most like the version in the guest's imagination.
• Aerials need two separate approvals. Much of the valley sits in Class B airspace tied to Harry Reid International, so commercial flight requires Part 107 plus airspace authorisation, and near the airport the ceiling may make it pointless. The property also has to agree to flight over its grounds. Confirm both before it is in the plan.
• Reset the deck before shooting. Towels squared, furniture aligned, stray glasses cleared. Ten minutes of tidying saves an hour of retouching.
• Heat is a real production constraint. Talent, crew and gear all suffer in a Vegas summer afternoon. Schedule humanely or the images show it.

Bars, restaurants and meeting space

The lobby and the bar carry the personality. Meeting space carries the revenue nobody photographs. Both are shaped by lighting designed for atmosphere rather than for cameras.

The Drey Hotel, Montage Beverly Hills, Meridian and the Village Beach Club.

• Shoot each room in the state guests actually see it. A bar photographed at 10am under house lights is a different room from the one people visit. Ask for the evening lighting state to be brought up.
• Meeting space needs two versions and usually gets neither. Sales needs clean empty rooms for proposals. Marketing needs the same rooms alive with people. In a convention town this is the most under-photographed revenue driver on the property.
• Mixed colour temperature is the real technical problem. Tungsten downlights, daylight through a window and a neon sign in one frame is what separates professional work from competent amateur work.
• Public areas shoot before service. Early morning gives a clean quiet room. Chasing a hero lobby frame during check-in is a losing fight.
• Food and drink deserve their own block. Plated dishes and cocktails run on a ninety-second clock and should not be squeezed between interior setups. Our food photography guide covers how that half runs.

Planning a Las Vegas property shoot

• Build the schedule around light, not around a walking tour. The instinct is to move through the property in order. The productive version groups everything by when it looks best: interiors midday, pool and exteriors at golden hour, bar in the evening.
• Block the rooms, properly. Whatever categories are on the shot list have to come out of inventory. That is a revenue decision and it needs making by someone who can make it, well before shoot week.
• File the certificate of insurance early. Every major property requires a COI naming them before a crew loads in. We turn one around in 24 hours, but it cannot happen on the morning.
• Decide the talent question up front. Real guests, hired talent or staff. Each carries a different cost, a different release requirement and a very different look.
• Avoid the convention calendar unless you want it in shot. During a major show the property is full, the public spaces are busy and access tightens. Sometimes that energy is exactly what you want. Usually it is not.
• Capture video in the same session. Lighting is up, rooms are blocked, talent is there. It is the cheapest video a property will ever buy, and it means the film and the stills finally match.

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• What a Las Vegas videographer costs