The right image atmosphere for your hotel photo is not just a question of the artistic freedom of your photographer. It is your active decision, taking into account your corporate identity. Especially individual hotels and smaller hotel chains often do not yet have their own style guide for their corporate communications. This quickly leads to an inconsistent visual language. In this article, we will therefore look at three examples of how you can send different messages through the lighting mood in your pictures. With a conscious decision for a photographic style, you can thus strengthen your brand and better communicate your wishes with your photographer.

Hotel photo with pure daylight

A very clean, timeless look is created by exclusively using daylight in your photos. Especially modern interior design with a monochrome look really comes into its own here. Rooms with dominant white radiate purity and natural brightness with daylight. Interiors with black or dark gray walls can show their full contrast spectrum with daylight, resulting in powerful, elegant images.

The neutral color temperature of the light also directs the focus to the color palette of your interior. In our example photo from a junior suite at the WestIn Leipzig, the two complementary colors of the room immediately stand out. The creamy main color of the walls and fabrics is excellently contrasted by the cyan-colored pillows on the bed. As a secondary color, the green pillows and the plant support each other with the complementary violet of the pillow on the armchair. If the interior reflects the color palette of your company, then images with pure daylight stylistically fit very well into your communication channels. All CI colors are set in focus, unadulterated and prominent.

I recommend pure daylight for hotels with modern interiors with dominant white, gray, and black surfaces. The look is suitable for design & boutique hotels in an urban environment and appeals more to a young audience and business customers.

Interior shot of hotel photography in Leipzig in daylight — Hotel room with natural daylight

Hotel photo with a mixture of daylight and artificial light

A room becomes cozy and inviting through a warm color atmosphere. This warmth is usually brought into a room by the lights. If all light sources are equipped with warm white LEDs in the same Kelvin spectrum, they create a consistent warm glow in the room.

Especially in the hospitality industry, this is the most popular image style. The hotel guest is greeted with a homely, comfortable style and immediately feels comfortable. The orange color tone in the picture is associated with sunshine, tropical regions, as well as autumn and harvest. Orange increases the oxygen supply in the brain and has a joyful, stimulating effect (according to www.color-wheel-pro.com). Especially in combination with a sunrise and sunset in the picture, this lighting mood harmonizes very well as a transition from day to night.

Sounds good, right? So from now on, we'll photograph all hotel photos with the lights on! The warm artificial light effect does not come without its own disadvantages. While the light-flooded image with pure daylight shines all by itself, with artificial light you subconsciously have the feeling that the room would be too dark without lamps. Why else would you leave the light on in the middle of the day?

If the interior is modern and monochrome, the warm light can create an old-fashioned sepia filter impression that can be contrary to your clean brand communication.

The mixed lighting mood is well suited for hotels with dominant warm colors in their interior. Natural wellness and family hotels often work with warm colors in their corporate identity, which are well supported by hotel pictures with mixed light.

Learn more about my hotel photography portfolio

Hotel room featuring a blend of artificial and natural light

Hotel photo using purely artificial light

Fountains of light spring from every lamp in the room, bathing the image in a golden glow. As the sun sinks behind the horizon, daylight as a light source also fades away. What remains is the lighting concept of the interior designer, giving each part of the room its own feeling. This lighting mood particularly emphasizes luxurious interiors with sophisticated room concepts. Here, not only do the lights themselves become a stylistic element, but also their light dispersion and the reflections on the surrounding materials influence the perception of the hotel guest.

The natural room colors are covered or altered by the artificial light. On the one hand, this ensures a homogeneous, warm color impression, but it also takes away some of the color contrasts from the image. To prevent the subject from appearing too uniform, the blue evening atmosphere in the window contrasts with the rest of the color scheme in the photo. In post-production, the photographer can also recolor certain elements of the photo, such as the decorative pillows on the bed, to restore their natural tonality.

Images with purely artificial light particularly support luxurious grand hotels with warm, golden interiors. Corporate identities with dark blue tones as a contrasting color create a harmonious ensemble with the warm artificial light images.

Hotel room interior shot Leipzig at dusk — Hotel room in evening atmosphere with purely artificial light

Conclusion

When choosing the right lighting mood for your hotel photos, you should consider several factors:

Which target group are you addressing and what message do you want to convey?
How does the image style harmonize with the color palette of your corporate identity?
Which lighting mood supports the interior design of your hotel rooms?

Discuss these aspects with your photographer and develop a common understanding of your company's needs. A style guide with sample images and written specifications is particularly helpful for a consistent visual language in hotel chains.

In the case of the Westin Leipzig, we have a diversified image. The hotel primarily caters to business customers with large conferences. The Westin CI color palette is mostly warm monochrome with terracotta and granite tones, with cooler citrus and mint-colored accents. The interior design picks up on the warm tones of the corporate identity, but uses cyan, a different complementary color, in the room. In my opinion, mixed lighting in the hotel photos is the best choice here. It supports the interior, but does not appear too luxurious due to the daylight, but rather somewhat lighter. A few evening shots with purely artificial light could appeal to business customers who often only see their hotel rooms in the dark. In addition, this image style draws even more focus to the wonderful view of downtown Leipzig.

PS

All shots in this post were taken on a cloudy spring morning. With the right technology, I, as a photographer, can support you with the perfect image for your corporate identity in any weather.

Many thanks to the Westin Leipzig for kindly providing the rooms for this article!