Today’s Photo of the Day is “Ghost Trees” by Paul Laurenza. Location: Yellowstone National Park, California.
Want to get your images in the running for a Photo of the Day feature? Photo of the Day is chosen from various galleries, including Assignments, Galleries and Contests. Assignments have weekly winners that are featured on the website homepage, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To get your photos in the running, all you have to do is submit them.
Airbnb and Vrbo are two of the most popular options for booking short-term and vacation stays. Both companies with millions of guests and hosts have become the leading marketplace for vacation rentals. If you are an Airbnb or Vrbo host, then highlighting all the special features and amenities in a property is essential to increasing occupancy rates. According to Matterport, Vrbo listings with a virtual tour increase bookings by up to 14%.
One way to showcase vacation properties to the fullest is using Matterport, a 3D data platform most widely known for its “dollhouse view”. That is because Matterport is revolutionizing the way people search for and book short-term and vacation rentals using its immersive 3D technology. However, its Mattertag Post feature has been a great ally to property owners who have listed their vacation rentals on these platforms.
Using Mattertag Posts allows users to add context to specific areas or objects within a property as well as highlight specific features that may not be visible or easily displayed in photos. Mattertag Posts include a title and text description anchored to a point in your scanned space.
Furthermore, having a Matterport 3D tour will not only elevate your listing but will also set realistic expectations resulting in overall better results for you and a better experience for your guests. With this technology, guests can get a better feel for the property’s layout, size, and amenities, and make a more informed decision when it comes to selecting the right rental for their needs. Further, when expectations match the actual property, reviews will also improve – which is extremely important for vacation rental hosts.
In addition, when using Matterport you can also create guided 3D tours, detailed floor plans, long and short videos and more. You can utilize all of these for different marketing pieces. While high quality photography is still the most important media needed to have a successful Airbnb or Vrbo listing, a Matterport 3D tour will set your listing apart from the rest.
Overall, Matterport is a game-changer for the short-term and vacation rental market. With the most immersive technology on the market, potential renters can now fully explore a vacation property from the comfort of their own homes, while rental owners can rest assured that the person booking knows exactly what to expect.
Both Airbnb and Vrbo hosts have increased their number of guests by providing an early home experience through 3D virtual tours. There is no doubt that matterport is quickly becoming the go-to solution for short-term and vacation rentals, and is revolutionizing the way people search for and book their rentals.
So, if you are a homeowner listed on Airbnb or Vrbo, or other similar sites, do not miss out on this incredible opportunity to boost your business to the next level. If you are in the DFW area or San Antonio, Sharp Frame Media is there to help you transform your home into a 3D virtual reality experience through matterport.
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Sharp Frame Media is a 5-star rated real estate media company servicing Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin, Texas. Founded in 2017 on values of craftsmanship, service, and partnership. Our #1 priority is customer satisfaction.
Shutterbug readers tend to be a gear-happy lot, with a variety of cameras for different purposes. In addition to a DSLR or mirrorless camera (or both) with an arsenal of lenses, there may be a pocket-size compact with a large sensor, a lightweight super-zoom model, and perhaps a film camera or two. Despite all this equipment, we all shoot with our smartphones on occasion (whether we admit it or not).
Today’s advanced phones are capable of capturing high-quality images, especially if you know the ropes. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for experienced shooters to approach mobile photography in a manner they’d never consider with their “real cameras.” By that we mean ignoring the many photocentric features in their phones, shooting in Auto mode, and letting the phone make all the decisions.
If that sounds familiar we encourage you to pay close attention to the video below, which explains the finer points of mobile photography in terms of 13 powerful tips and tricks. You’ll quickly gains a better understanding of and appreciation for the gorgeous phone photos you’ve seen in the past.
Instructor Jamie Windsor specializes in uncommon tutorials “that don’t exist anywhere else on YouTube”—whether he’s dealing with gear or shooting techniques. It’s a very refreshing approach, as you’ll see below.
For this episode Windsor begins with an inspirational display of “opportunistic” phone images by long-time NY Times Magazine Photo Editor Kathy Ryan. These stunning images are part of her “Office Romance” series captured amidst the chaos at work with the building’s unique architecture as the backdrop.
As you might expect given her position at the Times, Ryan works at a frenetic pace, which is what makes her images so breathtaking. That’s because, apart from technical excellence, they convey a feeling of serenity and calm.
The four-minute display of Ryan’s work (with salient comments by Windsor) leaves you wanting more, but at this point he turns to some great mobile photography tips now that you’re in the mood. So watch the video, keep an open mind, and go shoot some great phone photos of your own.
Last week we featured a very popular tutorial on shooting spectacular sunrise and sunset photos, with tips on gear, camera settings, composition, and more. Today we’re moving on to step two with some great editing advice for achieving maximum impact.
Tom Sloan is a pro specializing in landscape and portrait photography, and a very popular instructor. In the nine-minute video below he reveals several of his favorite techniques for processing sunset photos in Lightroom to fix shots that have problems or turn good images into great ones.
Like all of Sloan’s lessons this one is very straightforward, with adjustments and enhancements that anyone can master. In this episode he explains how to use a variety of Lightroom panels to make your late-day photos really sing. He covers the Basic, Calibration, and Tone Control panels, as well as a simple masking method to embellish your shots with a subtle glow.
Sloan’s goal is to help you achieve eye-catching results that still appear realistic without gaudy special effects. You’ll likely be able to extrapolate from you learn, and apply some of these tips to sunrise photos. His demonstration image looks pretty good—until you compare it to the post-edit result.
The first step occurs in Lightroom’s Develop model where he brings down the highlights, and opens up shadows. He then demonstrates the improvements you can make using the white point and black point of a photo. A bit of extra Vibrance and Saturation, improves the image even further.
Sloan then turns to masking for adding a nice glow to the upper portion of the shot where the sun dropped behind a stand of trees—all while retaining a natural looking result. As you’ll see, a simple Radial Gradient does the trick.
The final steps in the impressive transformation occur in the Tone Control and Calibration panels, and Sloan walks you through the step-by-step process for each. All that’s left is to compare the Before/After images and say “WOW!”
