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Photography & image style

Real light, real people, room to breathe

Our pictures should make you want to be there — not because it looks perfect, but because it looks real. We show the morning light on a terrace, the host who made the bread, the street behind the house. People and places first; rooms second.

Natural light

Shoot in the first two hours after sunrise or the last two before sunset. No flash, no studio light. Shadows are welcome.

People mid-moment

Hosts and guests doing something — pouring, laughing, swimming. Nobody looks into the lens, nobody poses.

Room to breathe

Straight horizons, simple compositions and plenty of sky or sea, so there's always space for a headline.

Image style

How an Onda photo feels

Hover over each scale to see what it means, and use the moodboard when you choose or brief images: green fits, red doesn't.

What this means: Daylight, ideally early or late. Bright but never blown out; real shadows stay in.

What this means: True to life and sun-warmed. No filters, no teal-and-orange grading.

What this means: Slow moments: a swim, a long lunch, a quiet street at noon.

What this means: Caught mid-moment, never looking into the lens. Hosts and guests, not models.

What this means: Mostly wide with room for a headline; close-ups for food, hands and textures.

Keywords

morning light
real hosts
salt and sun
linen
hands at work
long tables
straight horizons
warm colour
room to breathe
local markets
bare feet
honest shadows

Moodboard

Gallery

A day at Onda

From the first coffee to the last candle. Use this set as a reference for briefing photographers and choosing images.

Breakfast table on a terrace above the sea, with oranges and a blue cup — 08:00 — Breakfast on the terrace, Comporta.

Small fishing boats in a blue harbour with white houses on the far shore — 09:00 — The fishing boats come in, Tavira.

Market stall under a striped awning with crates of lemons and tomatoes — 10:30 — Saturday market with our cook.

Whitewashed street with blue door, steps and a cat in the sun — 12:00 — The back streets of Cádiz.

Host in a blue apron holding a bowl of lemons in a doorway — 13:00 — Rosa, our host in Procida.

Swimmer in a turquoise cove below an ochre cliff — 15:00 — The cove below the house, Menorca.

Simple room with linen curtains blowing in front of a sea view — 17:00 — Room 12, windows open.

Olive trees on rolling hills in warm evening light — 19:00 — Walk through the olive grove.

Long dinner table under string lights at dusk with guests on both sides — 21:00 — Long-table dinner with neighbours.

Do's and don'ts

Choosing the right picture

Do

Natural daylight with real shadows and true colours.
People caught mid-moment, in their own setting.
A straight horizon and space for a headline.

Don't

Heavy filters, colour casts or dark vignettes.
Tilted horizons and 'dramatic' angles.
Discount stickers or text slapped on top of a photo.

Specifications

Practical details

Formats and crops

Shoot in 3:2 landscape and 4:5 portrait. Our standard crops are 3:2 (web hero), 4:3 (cards and galleries), 4:5 (Instagram feed), 9:16 (stories) and 1:1 (avatars and tiles). Keep the subject out of the outer 10% so every crop works.

Resolution and export

Web: JPG or WebP, sRGB, 2400 px on the long side, under 400 KB. Print: TIFF or maximum-quality JPG, Adobe RGB converted by the printer, 300 dpi at final size. Name files as house-subject-yyyymmdd, e.g. procida-market-20260512.jpg.

Retouching

Correct exposure, white balance and straight lines. Don't change skin, body shapes, the colour of the sea or the weather. Remove only temporary distractions such as a bin bag or a parked scooter.

Consent and credits

Everyone recognisable needs a signed model release (forms in four languages are in the shared drive). Never photograph guests without asking. Credit photographers as 'Photo: First Last' in captions and on social posts.

Alt text and captions

Every image online gets alt text that describes what you see, in one sentence, without 'image of'. Captions add what you can't see: who, where and when — like a host would tell it.

Stock photography

We don't use stock photos of people. Stock is only allowed for landscapes and textures, after approval by the art director — and never for a place we don't actually have a house.