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Photography Tips
Best Practice for Taking the Right Shots


3 photography tips that will instantly improve your photos for your website and social media


As a manufacturer of new construction cleaning and restoration products, we are constantly seeing pictures from business owners and contractors.


The best images always have three basic concepts in common. Whether someone submits a picture to us to troubleshoot a new construction problem, or they want to share a success story with potential customers on their website, the following tips will help everyone- even someone with limited knowledge of photography taking pictures with their cell phone- to take more effective images.


1. Always take these pictures to tell your story:

  1. Before: Stand way back and shoot the whole structure. Then move closer and shoot the problem areas, spans of about 12’x12’. Move closer still to the problem areas and get super close ups, think 3 bricks by 3 bricks. You will want to return to the exact positions for your after shots. Also, try to find a unique brick or reference point in your shot so you can easily compare before and after.
  2. During: You are telling a sequential story with your images, and customers love to see you in action. Shoot your team as they work the job.
  3. After: When the job is done, review your before pictures. Shoot your after pictures at the same time of day and similar weather conditions as before. Recreate the before shots now that the cleaning is done. It’s way easier for your potential clients to compare befores and afters if you keep the angles and lighting as similar to your before photos as possible.

2. When shooting architecture, the ideal position to stand is smack-dab in the middle.

Stand halfway between one end and the other, and halfway between the ground and the roof and shoot straight on. That’s how you get nice square angles. It’s not always possible, but if you shoot at an angle, you are going to introduce a lot of unintended perspective. You can call it artistic, but what you are doing is distracting from the message you are sending, which is a clean, successful, well-done job.


3. Buildings (and really any subject) look best an hour after sunrise and and hour before sunset.

Avoid directly overhead mid-day light that casts harsh shadows that make everything look bad, particularly avoid times between 12-3 in the afternoon. Cloudy days diffuse the sunlight, minimize shadows, and generally make for good building photography anytime of day.