Project photos for builder and trade websites

The short version

Shoot every job at three moments: before work starts, during the parts nobody will see later, and when it is finished and clean. Take finished shots in soft daylight with the camera level. Pick fewer, better photos per job. Before publishing, resize them, give them descriptive file names and alt text, and make sure the owners have agreed.

Taking the photos

You do not need professional gear for project photos. A recent phone can do well if you get the basics right.

• Light. Overcast days and early or late sun are kinder than harsh midday light. Indoors, turn on every light and open the curtains, then avoid shooting straight into a bright window.
• Level. Hold the phone upright and level so walls look straight. If your phone camera has a grid setting, turn it on.
• Height. For rooms, shoot from about chest height. For exteriors, step back far enough to get the whole elevation without tilting up.
• Clean. Move ladders, offcuts, bins and vehicles out of frame. Ask the owners whether they want personal items moved before you shoot inside.
• Detail. Take close-ups of the things you are proud of: joinery, flashings, tiling, a tidy switchboard.

A professional photographer is worth paying for your best jobs. Their photos will carry the project pages you most want people to see.

Shooting during the build

Some important work is hidden by the end: foundations, framing, insulation, membranes, drainage. Photos of those stages show care that a finished photo cannot. They also help you answer questions later. Take them as you go and file them with the job.

Before and after pairs

For renovation work, a before and after pair explains more than any description. To make the comparison fair:

• take the before photo from a spot you can find again, and note where you stood
• take the after photo from the same spot, at a similar time of day
• keep the framing similar, so the room is recognisably the same

A pair where the before photo is darker, blurred or taken from a worse angle can make the work look better than it is. The official consumer guidance on the Fair Trading Act says businesses must not mislead people about what they sell, whether or not they meant to. If a pair is not like for like, say so in the caption, or use the after photo on its own.

The same applies to design renders and mood images. They can be useful on a service page, but label them clearly and never mix them into a project as if they were finished work.

Choosing which photos to use

For a full project page, eight to fifteen photos are plenty. Choose:

• one strong overview to lead the page
• several that show the main spaces or elevations
• a few details that show quality of work
• one or two from during the build, if they explain something

Leave out near-duplicates and anything you would not want a future client to look at closely.

Permission and privacy

A photo of someone's home is personal information when it can identify them, and the Privacy Act principles apply to how you collect, use and disclose it. The practical steps are simple:

• ask the owners before you publish, and keep a note of what they agreed to
• leave out house numbers, letterboxes, street signs and number plates
• avoid faces unless the person has agreed, and children altogether
• say the town or suburb only if the owners are happy with that
• remove a photo promptly if an owner changes their mind

The project caption builder includes a permission checklist you can save with each job.

Preparing the files

Size. Phone photos come out far larger than a web page needs. Resize them so the longest side is around 2,000 pixels for full-width images and smaller for thumbnails, then compress them. A web developer can also serve several sizes so phones download smaller files.

Speed. On a project page, the lead photo can be the largest element on the first screen, which would make it the Largest Contentful Paint. Web.dev treats 2.5 seconds or less as a good LCP, judged on the 75th percentile of visits. Large, uncompressed photos work against it.

File names. Google's image guidance recommends short, descriptive file names. weatherboard-reclad-villa-front.jpg says something; IMG_4471.jpg says nothing.

Alt text. Google asks for useful, descriptive alt text without keyword stuffing, and the W3C's guidance on non-text content says informative images need a text alternative that serves the same purpose. Describe what the photo shows in a sentence: "Kitchen after renovation, with oak cabinets and a white tiled splashback." Decorative images, such as a background texture, should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them.

Placement. Google's guidance also suggests placing images near related text. On a project page, that means each photo sits beside or under the paragraph it illustrates.

Keeping a photo library

Set up a folder per job, named with the date and a short description, with subfolders for before, during and after. Add a text file with the owners' permission and any limits. When you come to write the project page, everything is in one place.