Why Is Architecture Photography Important?

Investing in a professional architectural photographer is a great way to help your potential customers identify you from a sea of other firms similar to you.

Everyone has access to a camera through their smartphone these days and can easily upload their images to their website or social media. This means that there is more visual noise in the market that your future clients have to navigate through before deciding on their next architect for their project.

Here are six reasons why architecture photography is a vital part of your marketing and sales strategy.

Build Your Portfolio

The first and obvious reason why architecture photography is needed is that you can build a reliable portfolio to share with your future clients and partners. This can be either on your website, through social media platforms such as Instagram, Houzz, or Pinterest and more traditional methods such as printed portfolios.

Your portfolio should consist of your best work that highlights your design intent, expertise, and quality of your work. Project images are a crucial part of the sales process for clients and will play a fundamental role in their final decision.

All That’s Left Of Your Final Work

After spending countless days in meetings, months on-site and even years on a project, all that’s left is your drawings, renders, and images (and the building itself!). In most cases, you won’t be able to bring new prospects to the completed project and your images will play an essential role in selling your work.

While drawings and renders help communicate your design philosophy, they don’t show the final outcome. Only images can do this without being physically onsite.

Having quality images that you can confidently show to your prospects that accurately communicate your experience, expertise and quality are crucial for securing new projects.

Your Photos Represent Your Brand Image

While everyone has access to a camera through their smartphones and can take selfies or snapshots, it isn’t the best way to represent a business professionally. Having a professional brand image is vital in attracting clients and partners. The images on your website are often the first impressions and set the tone for your whole business.

The visual element plays a significant role in architecture and having poor quality photography can be a reflection of your brand or business itself. Human nature has an unconscious association where if the photos are bad the product or service must be bad. Poor photography also communicates that your business doesn’t care enough to have good photos which can negatively impact your brand image.

If you’re looking to win bigger projects your current work needs to communicate that you have the experience, expertise and can deliver a client their dream home. Promoting your professional architecture photography will communicate to your clients that you are serious about your career and take great pride in your work.

Print + Digital Media

Editors of magazines, newspapers, and online digital media platforms have high standards when it comes to publishing architecture and interior work. They have their own brand image that they also need to protect.

The images are just as ( and sometimes more) important as the written copy when it comes to representing the story of your work. Partnering with an architectural photographer will vastly increase your chances of getting your project published.

Competition & Award Submissions

It’s a bit of a no-brainer that if you want your project to be considered for an award it needs to be presented in the best light possible. Architectural photographers are specialists when it comes to capturing a space in terms of design intent, capturing mood, light, colour, and texture.

Increase Website Traffic Through SEO

Mobile searches for “image search” have grown by over 60% in the past two years. In 2018, google images search made up 22.6% of all Google searches according to Hubspot.

If you follow proper SEO guidelines such as using filenames + alt tags with relevant keywords, small file sizes and correct media format can help your website get found in the image results like Google Images and perform better in the overall search results.

Always compress your image file size before uploading to your website to help maintain fast download speeds for users.

Work With A Specialist Photographer

A professional photographer that specialises in your industry will represent your project in the most appropriate way. For example, would you hire a food specialist or wedding specialist photographer to shoot your €50,000 wedding? The same principle applies to architecture and interior projects.

Architectural photographers have the industry knowledge and skills to capture your project in the best light possible. Other photography genres such as real estate are hired to showcase the property with the intention of selling. Architecture photography on the other hand is about capturing the aesthetic and intention of a structure in the most interesting and unique way possible.