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        • City of Rocks Camping
        • City of Rocks National Reserve
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      • Henrys Lake State Park
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        • Tamarack Resort
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      • Pine Flats Hot Springs
      • Yellowstone Road Trip
    • Montana
      • West Yellowstone, Montana
    • Oregon
      • Clyde Holliday State Park
      • Kam Wah Chung & Company
      • Magone Lake
      • Opal Creek Hike
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      • Gifford Pinchot National Forest Hikes – Lava Canyon Trail #184
      • Run the Spokane River and the Centennial Trail
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      • Yellowstone: Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic Springs
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      • Toronto Pearson Airport
      • Vancouver Airport First Nations Art
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      • Hilton Molino Stucky – The Best Place to Stay in Venice
      • Venice Airport Restaurants – deCanto Wine Bar
      • Venice Nightlife – The Best Rooftop Bar in Venice
      • Water Taxis in Venice – How to Get Around
    • Mexico
      • Cobá Ruins
      • Ek’ Balam and Chichén Itzá Ruins
      • Mayan Palace and the Grand Mayan Resorts
      • Puerto Morelos
      • Tulum Beaches: Playa Paraíso
      • Tulum Ruins
    • New Zealand
      • Top 10 New Zealand Activities
      • Abel Tasman Coast Track
      • Arrowtown
      • Blue Pools
      • Brunner, Waiuta, and Motueka
      • Dunedin
      • Fox Glacier
      • Haast and Bruce Bay
      • Hokitika
      • Makarora West
      • Moeraki Boulders
      • Picton
      • Queenstown Restaurants: The Cow
      • Queenstown: Things to Do
      • Wellington
    • United States
      • California
        • Napa Valley Wine Tasting Tours
  • Download FREE Stock Photos
    • Animals
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      • Birds
      • Cow, Sheep, & Pigs
      • Crayfish
      • Deer & Elk
      • Horses & Tack
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      • Starfish & Other Sea Creatures
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      • Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn
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    • Historical
      • Kam Wah Chung Artifacts
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      • Industrial
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The Contemporary Hotel Jackson in Jackson, Wyoming.
Written by Mod Fam on May 29, 2020

Hotel Photography: Free Contemporary and Vintage Hotel and Motel Stock Images

Free Stock Photos

Contents of this Post

  • Hotel Photography: Free Stock Photos for Photographers, Bloggers, and Designers
    • Copyright and Credit: Hotel and Motel Photography
    • Photography Tutorial: How to Photograph Contemporary and Vintage Hotels and Motels
  • Get More Free Stock Photos & Photography Resources
  • While You’re Here, Visit Our Other Pages with Best Free Stock Photo Sites for Photographers, Bloggers, and Designers
    • Check Out Mod Fam Global, Our Portal for Travel, Adventure, and Exploration

Hotel Photography: Free Stock Photos for Photographers, Bloggers, and Designers

Select the button below any hotel photography image to view a free, downloadable stock image for free use on your website, blog, print or digital media, or other project. Check out all of our free contemporary and vintage motel stock photos.


Hotel Photography: The Bigelow Hotel and Residences, built in 1927 in the Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style in Ogden, Utah.  The Hotel sits across the street from city hall park and less than a mile from the famous Union Station.  Snow-covered mountains are visible in the distance.
Odgen, Utah’s 1927 Bigelow Hotel and Residences
Download FREE Hotel Photo
Mexico City's Hotel Isabel, a former library and residence that now offers reasonable accommodation to tourists near Mexico City's zócalo or central plaza.
A Sign for Mexico City’s Hotel Isabel
Download FREE Hotel Photo
Hotel Photography: A view of the entrance to the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.  The iconic Lodgepole Pine lodge sits near Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin near the Firehole River..
The iconic Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Download FREE Hotel Photo

Copyright and Credit: Hotel and Motel Photography

How to Credit

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All hotel and motel images are property of Mod Fam Global LLC and offered for private and commercial use, free of charge. Please credit Mod Fam Global, LLC, https://modfam.global/ for any public, online, or print materials using our images.

Send us a Note

If you use any of our free contemporary and vintage hotel and motel stock images for online or commercial use, please send us a note and let us know how you used the photos. We love to see how our photography is being used, and we appreciate photo credit and links back to our site.


Hotel Photography: A view of the entrance to the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.  The iconic Lodgepole Pine lodge sits near Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin near the Firehole River..
The iconic Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Click to Download
Hotel Photography: A view of the entrance to the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.  The iconic Lodgepole Pine lodge sits near Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin near the Firehole River..
The iconic Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Click to Download
Hotel Photography: A view of the entrance to the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.  The iconic Lodgepole Pine lodge sits near Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin near the Firehole River..
The iconic Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Click to Download

Photography Tutorial: How to Photograph Contemporary and Vintage Hotels and Motels

Manual ISO Settings for Hotel Photography

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Of the three main manual settings to consider for hotel and motel photography, ISO is the simplest. ISO simply refers to the light sensitivity of film or digital sensor. The lower your ISO, the less sensitive to light, and the longer it will take to expose. Higher ISOs allow you to photograph in lower light, but give you a grainy effect with more visual “noise.” For crisp, clear images, use a lower ISO. On bright sunny days, I use the lowest ISO possible to minimize grain. The hotel photo below captures all the detail at a low ISO. On grey, cloudy days like the photos above at Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn, a slightly higher ISO around ISO640 or ISO800 still gives me a crisp image but with greater light sensitivity. Choose your ISO based on light conditions and the end result you want to create.


Hotel Photography: Hotel Z in San Diego, California's Gaslamp District.
San Diego’s Hotel Z in the city’s Gaslamp District
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Hotel Photography: The Moxy Hotel in San Diego, California's Gaslamp District.
San Diego’s Moxy Hotel in the Gaslamp District
Click to Download
Hotel Photography: San Diego's Mid-Century Modern Villa Capri, a motel across from the famous Hotel Coronado.
San Diego’s Mid-Century Modern Villa Capri Motel
Click to Download
Hotel Photography: San Diego's Mid-Century Modern Villa Capri, a motel across from the famous Hotel Coronado.
San Diego’s Mid-Century Modern Villa Capri Motel
Click to Download

Manual Aperture Settings for Hotel Photography

Aperture is the most difficult of the three settings to figure out and master when photographing contemporary and vintage hotels and motels. That’s because it’s a little counter-intuitive. Aperture, or “f-stop,” refers to the size of the opening of the lens. As you might imagine, a larger opening or aperture lets more light in and exposes the image with more light. And a smaller aperture lets less light in, so it takes longer to expose the same amount of light. Here’s the hard part, though. A smaller f-stop correlates to a larger opening. So f3.5 or f4.5 are small f-stops but the largest aperture openings. Conversely, f22 is a large f-stop number, but a tiny opening.

Choosing Aperture Settings for Hotel Photography

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Aperture works together with shutter speed and ISO to expose an image. So your aperture setting depends, in part, on those other two settings. When photographing hotels and motels, I generally use a smaller aperture. That’s because aperture is also related to depth of field, and I want to have most or all of the building in focus for these photos. If you use f4.5, for instance, you may get more light exposed, but the focus area will be very small, blurring out most of the foreground and background. Start around f9 or f11, and then adjust your shutter speed from there. In very low light conditions, you’ll have to open your aperture more or use a tripod. In bright light conditions, you can restrict your aperture more, but a medium setting around f11 should be a good starting point.


Hotel Photography: The Swimming Pool at San Diego's famous Hotel Coronado.
The Swimming Pool at San Diego’s famous Hotel Coronado
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Hotel Photography: San Diego's famous Hotel Coronado.
San Diego’s famous Hotel Coronado
Click to Download
Hotel Photography: San Diego's famous Hotel Coronado.
San Diego’s famous Hotel Coronado
Click to Download

Manual Shutter Speed Settings for Hotel Photography

As I pointed out above, shutter speed works closely with aperture to control the speed and amount of light exposing your image. Too slow, and your shutter speed will let too much light in, overexposing the frame. Too fast, and your shutter speed will not let enough light in, obscuring critical details in shadow. Take the vintage hotel photo below, for example. The bright, diffused light makes it difficult to balance the detail in the shadows under the roof of the historic hotel. By manually slowing down the shutter speed a bit, though, I was able to capture more of the detail in the shadows. This brightened the sky a lot, but it creates the final image I was trying to capture.

Choosing Shutter Speed Settings for Hotel Photography

Read moreConstruction Photography: Free Stock Photo Downloads

I recommend starting by using a light meter or your camera’s automatic settings to get an average light reading. At ISO800, for example, your camera may select f11 and a shutter speed of 1/400 of a second. In the image below, that would darken both the shadows and the sky, averaging the light in the full frame. Starting with that, you can then adjust your shutter speed up or down to create the image you want. Remember that auto settings are an average, so it may create an image that is over- or under-exposed. An auto setting can give you a good baseline, but then manually adjust until you’re happy with the final photo. It’s easy to miss all the great detail in contemporary and vintage hotels and motels unless you manually adjust your settings!


Hotel Photography: The exterior balcony at historic San Diego's Cosmopolitan Hotel.
The exterior balcony at historic San Diego’s Cosmopolitan Hotel
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Hotel Photography: The main dining room inside historic San Diego's Cosmopolitan Hotel.
The main dining room inside historic San Diego’s Cosmopolitan Hotel
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Hotel Photography: The gaming parlor inside historic San Diego's Cosmopolitan Hotel.
The gaming parlor inside historic San Diego’s Cosmopolitan Hotel
Click to Download
Hotel Photography: Baker City, Oregon's Antler's Absolutely Modern Hotel and Residences.
Baker City, Oregon’s Antler’s Absolutely Modern
Click to Download

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Urban Photographers - Graffiti Background - Close-up photo of hand-scrawled, painted graffiti on a steel beam in Venice, Italy.

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The sun sets behind a power pole along Interstate 86, Eastern Idaho. Pink, orange, and purple clouds hover over the silhouetted power pole and power lines.

Free Pics: Utilities and Natural Resources

Dunedin, New Zealand's University of Otago Clocktower, an example of Gothic Revival Architecture

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Check Out Mod Fam Global, Our Portal for Travel, Adventure, and Exploration


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