Give a colleague who has never visited the business four photographs, in order. Could they identify the correct entrance and the first place to go inside? Where they hesitate is a useful photography brief.
Google's business-photo guidance specifically describes exterior images as a way to help customers recognize a business when approaching from different directions. Build on that purpose with this arrival storyboard.
Build the four-step arrival storyboard
- Recognize the place. Show the building or storefront from a relevant visitor approach. Keep the identifying context visible rather than cropping so tightly that every entrance looks alike.
- Choose the right entrance. Show the actual visitor door and a recognizable cue: suite number, sign, or distinctive entry feature. Confirm the correct route with the business contact first.
- Understand the first interior decision. From inside that entrance, show where reception, check-in, or the next confirmed destination sits. If a turn is required, make that relationship understandable.
- Recognize arrival. Show the destination itself so the visitor knows they have reached the right place.
One photograph may cover two steps. A straightforward storefront may need no separate “choose the entrance” frame. A suite inside a shared building may need more attention at that point than at the street.
Run the stop-point test
Ask the colleague to finish: “After this image, I would...” Do not coach them. Record the first uncertain answer:
Stop point: [which image]
Unanswered question: [which door, which turn, or where to check in]
Coverage needed: [the relationship the next photograph must show]
If the missing answer is a door code, opening time, or an access instruction, solve it in the visitor information rather than forcing it into the photograph. Do not put private entry credentials in public images.
A hypothetical shared-building example
Suppose a visitor recognizes the building in the first photograph but sees two identical doors in the second. A close-up of the suite number alone would identify the destination without explaining which door leads there. Brief a wider entrance view that includes both the confirmed visitor door and its identifying sign, then show the next interior decision. Repeat the test with someone who has not been coached on the route.
Send the storyboard with the commercial photography brief, along with the site's access contact and a plan for customers, staff, and visible screens. That gives the appointment a concrete outcome: a recognizable route, with the uncertain decisions addressed.
From Sam Reed’s property photography portfolio; editorial illustration, not a Same-Day HDR sample or a case study of this article.
