Hospitality · Dubai
Dubai has more good-looking hotels per square kilometre than almost anywhere, which is exactly the problem: looking good is the baseline, not the differentiator. What sells a suite here is specificity — the light at the hour your property actually owns, the view only your floor has, the detail a guest tells someone about afterwards. I shoot rooms, suites, F&B, spa and arrival across Dubai and the UAE, stills and film together, so the brand site, the OTA listing and the reels all come out of one visit and look like one property.
Proof
My last hospitality campaign was for the Marriott resort in Coorg, India — a cinematic brand film plus seven social reels, shot, graded and delivered end to end. Different country, same discipline: photographing a feeling that still reads at thumbnail size on a phone.
What a property usually needs
Every category, shot consistently so a guest comparing two room types is comparing the rooms, not the photography.
The restaurant, the bar, the breakfast spread — shot at the hour the room actually looks like that, which is rarely the hour that suits the kitchen.
Pool, spa, gym, lobby, the walk in from the car. The parts people picture before they picture the bed.
The thing your floor has that the floor below does not. Shot at the hour it actually looks like that, which is usually a narrow window.
Ballrooms, meeting floors and event set-ups for the trade decks — the buyer here is a corporate planner, not a holidaymaker, and they are reading for capacity.
One cinematic piece for the brand site and the trade decks, cut so it still works with the sound off.
Vertical, shot on the same visit rather than salvaged from the film afterwards. It shows when they are salvaged.
Correctly proportioned, honestly lit sets for the booking platforms, where most of the decision actually happens.
Dubai
The UAE brief usually isn't one property, it's one property in four registers — the brand site, the OTA listing, the trade deck and the social feed, each wanting a different crop and a different energy from the same suite. Planning the shot list around all four from the start is the difference between one shoot and three. Golden hour here is short and the light is hard; the schedule gets built around that, not around the hotel's convenience.
Questions
Yes, and it is usually the whole reason to book me rather than two suppliers. The lighting setup for a suite is most of the work; shooting motion from the same setup costs hours, not days, and everything matches afterwards because it came from one camera and one grade.
It depends on room categories more than on size. A city hotel with four room types, a restaurant and a pool is usually a full day plus an early start. A resort with villas spread over acres is two to three, because you are chasing the same hour of light across a lot of ground.
Yes. You get full usage for your own marketing — brand site, OTA listings, trade decks, print, paid social, in perpetuity. I do not licence hospitality work by the year or by the channel; you paid for the shoot, the pictures are yours.
Always, and it is easier when I get them early. Group properties usually arrive with a photography standard from head office covering angles, styling and grade. Send it before the recce and the shot list gets built against it, rather than reshot afterwards.
One all-in number per property, quoted after a short call about categories, dates and where the images need to run. It covers the shoot, the edit and the grade — no per-image fees and no separate licensing line later.
That is the normal condition, not a complication. Show apartments and turnover rooms get shot first, the rest fits around housekeeping, and I work with your duty manager on a running order rather than a fixed schedule. It is slower than an empty property and entirely doable.
Yes, with the schedule inverted. From roughly June to September everything exterior happens either side of the heat — early morning and the last hour before dark — and the middle of the day goes to rooms, spa and F&B. It is a planning problem, not a reason to wait until November.
Same shoot, and it should be planned that way from the start. Those four channels want different crops and different energy from the same suite, so the shot list gets built against all of them up front. Deciding afterwards is how a property ends up paying for the same room twice.
Room categories, the dates you are thinking about, and where the images need to run. I’ll come back with one all-in number covering the shoot, the edit and the grade.