For your website photos, a good phone is often enough if you use it well: natural light, tidy spaces, a clean lens and a clear list of what to shoot. Shoot every subject both horizontally and vertically, ask for consent from anyone who appears and use only your own, real photos, never images taken from the internet.
Before you shoot: light and tidiness.
- Natural light: shoot during the day, with curtains open and windows clear. Flash flattens everything and casts harsh shadows: keep it off.
- No backlighting: keep the window behind you or to the side, never in front of the lens.
- Tidy up: remove cables, boxes, stray chairs and handwritten signs. What you don’t notice with your eyes, the camera will.
- Clean the lens with a soft cloth: it’s the simplest trick and the one people forget most often.
- Hold the phone straight, at chest height, with the camera grid turned on: that way walls and doors stay vertical.
- Step closer instead of zooming: pinching to zoom often costs you quality.
Horizontal or vertical?
Both. On a computer, the large images at the top of a page are almost always horizontal; on phones and social media, vertical ones work better. For every important subject, take both versions and leave a little space around it: the website crops photos differently depending on the screen, and a margin keeps the details from being cut off. You’ll also be able to use the same photos on social media.
What to shoot for each section.
- Home page: the image that represents you best, such as the outside with your sign, the dining room, the workshop or your signature product.
- About: you and your team, at work or in a simple portrait, with your premises in the background.
- Services or products: one photo for each main service, showing the result or the work in progress.
- Details: materials, tools, ingredients, furnishings. They show care better than any sentence.
- Contact: the entrance seen from the street, so people recognise the place when they arrive.
- Menu or price list: for a digital menu, one dish at a time, from above or at a three-quarter angle, on a plain background.
The most common mistakes.
- Dark or blurry photos, taken in the evening or in a hurry.
- Heavy filters that change the colours: dishes and spaces should look the way they really are.
- Old photos showing furniture, signs or products that are no longer there.
- Sending them in a chat as regular images: they often get compressed. Send them as files or documents, by email or through a sharing link.
People, and photos from the internet.
If someone can be recognised in a photo, whether a customer or an employee, ask for their consent before publishing it, ideally in writing; for children, you need their parents’ consent. Otherwise, choose shots where people can’t be recognised. Photos found on Google or social media are off limits: they have an author and almost always rights attached, and they show a place that isn’t yours. When people walk in, they should find what they saw on your website.
An AI-generated image is no substitute for real photos of your premises: if you use one that looks real, since 2 August 2026 you have to say so. We explain it in our guide The AI Act and your business.
If Aleryc builds your website.
When we build a website with Aleryc, we write the copy and you provide the photos: we tell you exactly which ones we need and how to take them, then you choose whether to take them yourself with your phone or hire a photographer: for clients in Italy we act as the go-between with a professional photographer selected in your area. We book the appointment around your availability; you pay Aleryc, based on a quote, and Aleryc pays the photographer. Write to us (in English, by email or WhatsApp) and you’ll get our guidance in writing. We optimise the images before publishing them, and if you don’t have photos of suitable quality, we can enhance or regenerate them in high quality with AI, keeping the real features of your spaces and products.