What to Expect From Your Hipcamp Photographer

Signing up for Hipcamp’s professional photography program is a great way to make your listing more marketable. Our carefully vetted photographers take 15 or more photos of your camp, submit a recommendation and a review, and then our photo curation team organizes the photos for optimal performance, verifying your listing. If this service is available in your area, we’ll reach out and let you know, and then connect you with a photographer as soon as we can.

The value for you

We’re pleased to offer this professional photography service, at a subsidized rate of $100 to select regions. All photographers follow a specific shot list and style guidelines we provide to ensure you get the best photos of your land.

Since the photographer is often traveling a distance to your location, they will likely stay overnight in order to be on site during the best light. Additionally staying overnight enables them to write you a review which adds further value to your listing.

You can expect the photographer to stage the site for photos and they might bring friends along to act as models. We encourage photographers to include people enjoying the space in their photos whenever possible.

Hipcamps that receive professional photography receive 34% more bookings on average and 217% more clicks in Search.  This is because professional photos allow us to market your land to millions of Hipcampers on all of our channels—think social media, email, and more—as well as to select the optimal first photo for your site page.

How it works

1. Sign up for photography

The Hipcamp team will reach out to you via email or phone if your region is eligible for photography, and provide a form to sign up here. You’ll receive a confirmation email when we’ve reviewed your submission and added you to our roster of properties seeking photography.

2. Accept your photographer’s shoot request

A photographer will make a booking like any other camper and contact you via Hipcamp Messages. If your listing is set as Request to Book: Photographers use the standard camper booking request process to schedule photo shoots, so it’s important that you accept their request. Make sure to message your photographer back and confirm you will be ready on the shoot day.

We understand that giving up a free night might be tough, but because this is a highly valuable that will contribute to your success, it’s important that you accept the booking once you’ve signed up. Our photographers are limited in number so if you decline, expire, or cancel their shoot request, you may not get another request for some time, and may be removed from the program if it happens more than once.

3. Prepare for the photographer’s arrival

The day of your scheduled shoot, your land should be completely ready for the photographer. That means cleaning up any clutter or debris in advance to ensure your site looks its best.

You don’t have to be on your land while the photographer is there, but it should be extremely clear where to park and where to find the booked site. It’s especially important that you provide any gate codes or access information to the photographer beforehand—just as you would to any other camper.

If you are on the property, remember that photographers are there to take photos and generally cannot answer questions about how to optimize your property page or address any support issues you’re having. Please direct those here.

4. Sit back and allow our photo team to curate your photos

Within 3 days of the trip, your photographer will upload their recommendation, review, and photos. Our photo curation team will then organize the photos so that the best photos are first. These are the photos we know campers will be most likely to click on, so it’s extremely important that you keep the photo we select for the first slot in that space.

Once the photos are complete, we will deduct $100 from your upcoming payouts. Most Hosts pay this off within two weeks of their shoot!

What types of photos will I get?

All photographers follow our specific shot list, requiring 15 photos total. Each photo will follow our recommended style guidelines, which means they’ll be bright, warm, and appealing to Hipcampers.

What if I don’t like my photos?

We carefully vet every photographer that joins our professional program because we want to offer a consistent, on-brand style of photography that we know resonates with Hipcampers.

If a photo is inaccurate, inappropriate, or poor quality, it can absolutely be removed. At the end of the day, you have control over how you present your Hipcamp and are able to delete any photos you’d like. We generally don’t offer refunds but can consider it on a case by case basis.

What if I don’t like the order of photos uploaded by photographers or campers?

Hipcamp Hosts are able to re-order their own photos at any time, but it’s important that we continue to also offer community-uploaded photos and reviews in order to maintain this trust.

We highly recommend keeping our photo curation team’s first photo intact, as it is always specifically selected to optimize your page’s performance.

Check out some examples of professionally shot listings below.