The property website
Wide banners, often two or three to one, with room for a headline. It is the format web agencies ask for and the one most often missing: a square image cropped into a banner loses its subject.
Hospitality photographer
A hotel does not commission photographs, it commissions four image libraries that do not follow the same rules: the property website, the booking platforms, the press and social. Confusing them is what forces a second trip six months later. Framing them separately from the scout onwards is the whole job.
Four destinations, four ways to frame
The same room shot for a website, for a booking platform, for a press kit and for an Instagram account is not framed the same way. That is why a hotel shoot is planned by use, not by floor.
The booking platforms
They impose their own ratios and crop without warning. A room has to read at a glance there: the whole bed, the window, the volume. No blind spots, no poetic detail that says nothing about the space being sold.
Press and guides
High resolution, clean framing, few identifiable people, and files that meet a submission’s technical requirements. That is what decides whether a guide application goes through.
Social
Vertical, detail, gesture, texture. It is the library that runs out fastest and the one least often planned for. Adding fifty vertical frames during the session costs an extra hour and lasts a year.
The day follows the sun, not the floor plan
An east-facing room is shot in the morning, a terrace late in the day, an interior lounge at the hour light comes in without hitting hard. So the running order is built on the sun and on where the openings are, never on the convenience of working floor by floor.
On a terrace or a rooftop, the useful window between the sun dropping and full darkness lasts about forty minutes. It does not run twice in the same day. It is the one slot nobody improvises in: the shot list is settled the night before and run straight through.
A properly made room takes the housekeeper thirty to forty-five minutes before the first frame: the creases, the pillows, the fall of the curtain, the marks on the mirror. It is the line schedules forget, and it decides the final quality far more than the choice of lens.
What the spa, the bar and the restaurant add
The spa is the hardest room in a property. No daylight, very warm recessed sources, humidity that fogs a lens in three minutes, and surfaces that reflect everything. It is worked with a single added source matched to the room temperature, and the kit goes in and out in short sequences.
The bar is a set designed to be dark, which makes it a beautiful subject and a poor studio. The method is the one used on a cocktail menu: keep the room light as ambience and add a worked source on the glass. The detail is on the bar and cocktails page.
The property restaurant is a brief in its own right, with its chef, its service and its rhythm. Treating it as an annexe to the tour is the surest way to deliver plates shot in a hurry in an empty dining room.
Working in a property that stays open
A hotel does not close for a shoot. So the work happens around guests, with a base out of the circulation routes, kit that moves in one trip, and a running order signed off by housekeeping and reception the day before. Rooms are shot in the mid-day gap between checkout and arrival.
Anyone recognisable in frame signs a release, guests and staff alike. It is easier to organise in advance than to fix at delivery, and it is what lets the property use the images in advertising without exposure.
What is delivered, and for how long
A mid-sized property is covered in one to two days: the public spaces, two or three room categories, the bar, the restaurant and the spa. That comes to roughly sixty to a hundred retouched images, each delivered horizontal, square and vertical.
The selection goes out within five working days, the final delivery within ten. The scope of the licence, its duration and its channels are written into the quote before the shoot. For a property distributing through booking platforms and partners, that line matters as much as the image count: it decides whether the visuals can live on a tour operator’s site or only on your own.
I have worked for properties such as the Pullman and the Mondrian, and for hotel groups in Paris and on the French Riviera. Travel to Paris and the Riviera is not charged, transport and accommodation included.
Hospitality
Rooms, lounges, terraces and tables, shot in properties that stayed open.
What clients say
Reviews published on Ahoueke Hilaire’s Google listing, reproduced here word for word.
J’ai eu l’occasion de collaborer avec Hilaire sur plusieurs projets différents et j’ai particulièrement apprécié son approche du métier. Au-delà de la qualité technique des photos, il sait réellement comprendre un plat, mettre en valeur les détails et retranscrire l’intention, l’humain. Les échanges sont simples, professionnels et agréables, avec une vraie capacité à s’adapter aux contraintes d’une cuisine professionnelle. Un travail précis, créatif et toujours réalisé avec beaucoup de sérieux. Je le recommande vivement pour tout projet de photographie culinaire.
Nous cherchions un photographe capable de shooter à la fois nos chambres, notre spa et la carte du restaurant sur trois jours, sans mobiliser une équipe entière. Hilaire est arrivé seul, a travaillé en lumière naturelle le matin et au flash pour les ambiances du soir, et nous a livré 180 images retouchées en dix jours. Nous les utilisons depuis sur notre site, nos réseaux et nos supports de vente
« Nous avions besoin de packshots et de visuels d'ambiance cocktail pour un lancement national. Hilaire a construit les recettes visuelles avec notre ambassadeur, géré les fonds, les glaçons, la condensation, tout ce qui fait qu'un cocktail tient à l'image. Les visuels sont partis en PLV et en digital sans retouche supplémentaire. »
Je recommande fortement Hilaire. Nous avions un enjeu de cohérence : cinq adresses, cinq styles photo différents. Hilaire a proposé une direction visuelle unique et l'a tenue d'un établissement à l'autre. Il comprend vite les contraintes d'un groupe, il est autonome sur place et il ne perturbe pas l'exploitation.
Nous souhaitions des Reels de préparation, pas seulement des photos. Hilaire filme et photographie sur la même session, ce qui nous évite de bloquer le bar deux fois. Les vidéos de verse au ralenti tournent encore un an après et on grandement contribué à la visibilité de l’établissement! Un prestataire fiable auquel nous ferons de nouveau appel sans la moindre reserve!
Nous sommes une petite affaire, on ne pouvait pas se permettre une production. Hilaire a proposé une demi-journée avec une sélection resserrée, au prix annoncé, sans extras surprises. C'était exactement le bon format pour nous.
J'ai été client d'Hilaire pour de la photographie culinaire, son talent et sa passion ont rendu grâce à nos plats ! Un véritable professionnel avec qui j'ai hâte de travailler à nouveau
Je recommande vivement! Hilaire est professionnel, disponible et à l’écoute. Il a su s’adapter à notre projet, budget et a fourni un travail irréprochable! 5*
Frequently asked, hospitality
Do rooms have to be blocked for the shoot?
- Yes, but not for the whole day. A room blocked from morning to early afternoon is enough to prepare and shoot it. In practice we work on two or three sample rooms per category, not on a whole floor.
How many images for a full property?
- Sixty to a hundred retouched images across one to two days, depending on the number of room categories and whether there is a spa and a restaurant. Each one is delivered in three output formats.
Will the images work on booking platforms?
- Yes, that is built into the framing. Those platforms crop to their own ratios, so rooms are framed with the margin needed for a crop to take out neither the bed nor the window.
Can you shoot with guests in the hotel?
- Yes, that is the normal situation. The working base sits out of the circulation routes and the running order is agreed the day before with housekeeping and reception. Anyone recognisable in frame signs a release.
Is the hotel restaurant included?
- It is a separate brief, with its own chef and service, and it is planned as one. It can run on the same trip, which costs less than two visits, but it needs its own hours.
Do you travel outside Marseille?
- Travel to Paris and anywhere on the French Riviera is not charged, transport and accommodation included. Elsewhere in France and internationally it is quoted separately.
A property to photograph?
The brief form takes three minutes and asks the questions that matter: how many room categories, which spaces, where the images will live and for how long. That is what makes a real figure possible instead of a polite range.