The Cart Barn, Roshven, Ardnamurchan
This is the Cart Barn at 11pm on a summers night, we were there on holiday, I had no intention of anything other than taking a few holiday snaps around the area. However I put the photos together to send them to the owner, and there it was, an unintentional "branding shoot"
The Cart Barn is the holiday home, by which all other holiday homes should be judged. It is, just about perfect!
The idea behind a branding shoot is to portray your business in the best possible way through images and copy. The image part is my thing. I absolutely love going away on holiday, and try to go as frequently as I can, which as I suspect you know, is quite often. I scan the likes of Airbnb, booking.com, vrbo etc, to find appropriate places. This is generally really quite difficult. So many of the properties have a few, naff iPhone photos on their page and website. I quickly move on. I think, if they can't be bothered to take some nice photos of the property, its probably not that good, and I have very high standards!
It would seem to me that to sell your holiday house to the customer, its should be presented well.
I loved this shot, as soon as I took it. The photo shows the detailing in the stonework around a bedroom window, taken in the early evening sunlight. I feel that it has a slight romantic feel to it. From a branding point of view, it shows the effort that the owner has put into renovating the stonework. It also shows just how beautiful the light is there. This next image is taken from slightly further away and shows the detailing in the leadwork and the overall appearance of this end of the property
Flowers and attention to the garden
Taken on the same evening as the above shots. Flowers around a holiday home, at least to me, make it feel like a home. They give the property that loved feeling. It might be coincidental that I adore Lobelia "Chrystal Palace" and Pelargoniums. The owners of this property clearly enjoy gardening and their garden adds enormously to the overall ambience of the property.
This shot gives an inkling as to how the house sits with its neighbours and its immediate surroundings. You can also see how much work has gone into the detail of the lead and slate-work on the roof. As you can see there are are other buildings, but they are far enough away not to impinge on your space. Along with the shot below, this shot "anchors" the property
This shot, is actually the next door property, and it puts the holiday house into its surroundings. This seems to me to be really common, that the property owner does not show any images of the property in its setting. I put a considerable amount of effort into checking that out. I am probably quite a grumpy old git and don't want too many neighbours while I am holiday. I think that if the house was good enough to buy in the first place, be proud and show us where it is. The Cart barn is exquisitely set into its environment. In the background of this shot is the beautiful Island of Eigg
This final shot is just because I love sunsets. This was taken on Roshven beach, looking out towards Eigg, with Rhum in the background. West coast sunsets are a phenomena. They seem to go on for hours and generally get more and more beautiful as the evening goes on. This was taken just after 8pm. The sunset is also quite a lot later in the evening that far north.
Branding photography is a hell of a lot more than pitching up and taking a few snaps. These shots were taken over the week of our holiday there. I was only coincidently taking them, but I knew I wanted carefully crafted images. I wanted to make a romantic set of images to remind us of our holiday.
To do a proper job of a branding shoot, the scene needs to be scouted out. The shots put onto a storyboard. This will often involve the people working there, as well. If the shoot is outside then the weather must be right. I have plenty of lighting for indoor shoots. There is a considerable amount of planning and preparation to do beforehand. For example, what background is necessary for the website images? Often the day of the shoot is frenetic and takes 3 - 4 hours.
Post shoot there can be many hundreds of photos to process and select into the ones the customer ultimately gets. I like to deliver 200 or so properly processed images
I charge £900.00 for this type of shoot as they are so involved. I do believe that a decent branding shoot can truly elevate your website to another level! Please email me directly to book a shoot, at martinataxiom@gmail.com or 07770923503.
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