Taking an actual photograph may only take a few seconds. Since lighting and perspective is everything, you will often have to wait for the right conditions.
It is common to photograph different parts of a property at different times of day.
Dusk photos are a very good time to create an external photo create a cosy welcoming feel to a hotel.
Some rooms have better quality lighting as the sun's angle changes through the day.
Some rooms are better being photographed at night or with the curtains closed.
Wide Depth of Field
In all but a few cases, you will wish for a very wide depth of field. You will be aiming at f22 and greater (for specialist lenses).
Most of the time you will be photographing with low ISO settings and in aperture priority.
1/30th second f22 ISO 200
Equipment
To do quality work you will need a minimum of the following Quality Heavy Tripod Quality Wide Angle Zoom Lens Cable Release or Timer for Shutter Release
Like all types of photography, you can achieve good results with a modest equipment list.
Prime or Shift-Tilt lenses can greatly increase your imagery's quality & reduce production, however for beginner to intermediate level photography these are luxury items.
Camera Phones
The very latest mobile phone's have camera's with a greater quality and resolution than professional cameras as little as five years ago.
Control is the key to quality photography. Combine this with a fixed aperture and there are limitations to mobile phone architecture work. This does not mean that great results can not be achieved, just that there are more limitations.
Since the bracketing of exposure and HDR photography is often vital for quality architecture imagery, a very good tripod is absolutely vital.
Many mobile phones also have very good HDR algorithm's built in. These take multiple images and merge them together automatically, so (yet again) a tripod and timer is absolutely vital for any low light bracketed imagry.
Mixed Lighting
When photographing a room or venue is is very common to have warm lighting inside and natural daylight coming in from the windows.
With your camera set to auto colour, most commonly the daylight portion will have a strong blue tint.
In these cases, post production to colour correct the mixed lighting is needed. In this particular case, the adjustment colour brush is your friend.
HDR is your Friend.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) is key to capturing both the highlights and the dark shadows.
This can be done both in-camera and using post production.
Many modern camera's have a HDR function built in, the very latest ones now do a good job.
Most photographers choose to bracket the exposure of their photos. They then create a HDR montage using specialist software. In recent years the quality of this has improved greatly.
The Adobe Lightroom HDR system is both simple to use and very effective.
Other specialist HDR software can give more control as your experience grows.
1/4 second f22 ISO 200 HDR Merge using Lightroom
Original Exposure Bracketed Photos used to create final HDR Image
4 Seconds f22 ISO 160 HDR Merged using Lightroom
Original Exposure Bracketed Photos used to create final HDR Image
Hotel Room With Curtains Open (HDR)
Same Hotel Room With Curtains Closed (HDR)
Creates a completely different atmosphere to the image
Converging Perspective Lines
HDR Detail Shot
Classic example of an image that should be taken in different lighting conditions