What photos should a contractor put on their website?

Real photos of your own finished work, taken on your phone. Six is enough to launch: a wide shot of a finished job, a close-up of the detail that shows craftsmanship, a before-and-after pair shot from the same spot, you or your crew on site, a work-in-progress shot showing how you protect a house, and one ordinary everyday job rather than only your showpiece. Homeowners are trying to answer one question - does this person do work like mine, in houses like mine - and your own photos answer it in about two seconds.

What do I put on my website if I have no photos of my work yet?

Launch without them and add photos as you shoot them. In the meantime use what you already have: your lettered truck, your tools and gear, a clear photo of you, your license or certification card, and the neighborhoods you serve. If you did the work as an employee before going out on your own, you can show it as long as you describe your role honestly. Then photograph every one of your first few jobs. Waiting for a perfect photo library is the single most common reason a new business still has no website a year later.

Can I use stock photos on my business website?

As background or texture, sometimes. As proof of your work, no. Homeowners recognize stock imagery quickly, and a smiling model in a spotless hard hat tells them nothing about you - it reads as a site that could belong to anyone. Never present someone else's job as your own: it is deceptive advertising, and in a local market one customer recognizing their own house in your gallery does damage no ad budget will undo. A slightly imperfect real photo of your own work outperforms a flawless generic one.

Do I need a professional photographer for my website?

No. A recent phone in daylight is more than good enough, and homeowners often trust a real phone photo more than a styled magazine shot. The things that actually separate an amateur photo from a professional-looking one are free: wipe the lens, open the blinds and turn the lights on, move the ladder and cords and coffee cup out of the frame, stand back and hold the phone level, and take five shots so you can keep the best one. Book a photographer later if you want a polished hero image - do not let it hold up your launch.

RunCabin Blog · Getting chosen

What photos should I put on my website?

July 28, 2026 · 8 min read

Short answer: your own work, shot on your own phone. Six photos is enough to launch, and six real ones beat sixty stock images every single time. The homeowner looking at your site is not judging your photography. They are answering one question as fast as they can: does this person do work like mine, in houses like mine?

Photos answer that question in about two seconds, faster than any paragraph you could write. Which is also why the photo question stops so many good tradespeople cold - "I don't have any good pictures" is one of the most common reasons a website sits half-finished for a year. So here is the practical version: which shots actually matter, how to take them in about a minute on a job site, and exactly what to do if you have nothing yet.

The six shots that do the work

You do not need a gallery of a hundred jobs. You need a handful that cover the different things a homeowner is quietly checking. If you get these six, you can launch and grow the collection from there.

The finished job, wide. The whole room, the whole exterior, the whole yard - in context, so the scale reads. This is your headline image. Stand back further than feels natural.
The close-up that shows craft. A clean cut-in line at the ceiling. A tidy panel. A neat caulk bead, a straight tile edge, a soldered joint that looks deliberate. Anyone in your trade knows this shot is the actual proof, and homeowners feel it even when they cannot name what they are looking at.
A before and after, framed the same. The single most persuasive thing on a trades website - but only when both shots are taken from the same spot at the same height. Two photos from different corners just look like two different houses.
You, your crew, or your truck on a job. People hire a person, not a company. One clear shot of you in your gear at a real job does more for trust than any "About Us" paragraph. If you hate being photographed, shoot the lettered truck in a driveway.
Work in progress, done clean. Drop cloths down, floors covered, tools organized, the homeowner's furniture protected. This shot answers the fear that nobody says out loud: what is my house going to look like while you are in it.
An ordinary job, not just the showpiece. If your gallery is all luxury kitchens, the person with a normal 1,400-square-foot rancher assumes you are not for them, or that you will be expensive. Include the everyday work you actually want more of.

How to take them on your phone in about a minute

You do not need a camera, a photographer, or a lighting kit. Almost everything that separates an amateur photo from a professional-looking one is free and takes seconds.

Wipe the lens. A phone that lives in a work pocket has a smeared lens, and that haze is why your photos look washed out. Ten seconds on your shirt fixes it.
Shoot in daylight, with the lights on. Open the blinds, flip on the room lights, turn off the flash. Mid-morning or late afternoon outside beats harsh noon sun, which blows out siding and roofs.
Tidy the frame first. Move the ladder, the extension cord, the coffee cup, the trash bag, the pile of packaging. Two seconds of tidying is the entire difference between "amateur" and "professional" in a photo.
Stand back and hold the phone level. Turn on your camera's grid, shoot from a corner of the room, and keep the phone straight up and down instead of tilting up - tilting is what makes walls lean in and rooms look small.
Shoot wide, not tall. Website headers are wide. A vertical phone photo gets cropped hard on a banner and you lose the top and bottom of the shot. Turn the phone sideways for anything you want big on the page.
Take five, keep one. Storage is free. Take a handful of every shot and delete the rest that evening while it is still obvious which one is best.
Take the "before" before you unload the truck. This is the number-one regret in every trade. Once the job is underway the before shot is gone forever. Make it the first thing you do when you walk in, and mark where you stood so you can match it at the end.
Ask first, and watch what is in the frame. A quick "mind if I grab a couple of photos for my website when I'm done?" is almost always a yes. Keep house numbers, license plates, mail, and family photos out of the shot, and never post the customer's address.

What to leave off

A few things quietly cost you jobs, and they are all easy to avoid.

Stock photos standing in as your work. A model in a spotless hard hat giving a thumbs-up is recognizable as stock to almost everyone now, and it says nothing about you. As a background texture it is harmless. As proof of your work it is worse than an empty page, because it makes a visitor wonder what else is not real.
Anyone else's jobs. Do not pull photos from a supplier's site, a competitor, or an image search and present them as yours. Beyond being deceptive advertising, this is a local business - one customer recognizing their own kitchen in your gallery is the kind of story that travels through a town faster than any ad you could buy.
Heavy filters and giant watermarks. Filters make paint colors and stain look wrong, which is a real problem when the color is the product. A small logo in a corner is fine; a big transparent logo across the middle of the image just makes it harder to see the work.
Screenshots of photos. A screenshot of a photo from another app loses quality and often picks up the interface around it. Use the original file.
Forty photos of the same job. Three strong shots of five jobs beats forty shots of one. Nobody scrolls a hundred-image gallery, and a good site should not make them.

One technical note: photos straight off a modern phone are enormous, and a page loaded with full-size files is slow, which matters both to visitors and to Google. Any decent website setup should resize them for you automatically - if yours does not, that is a fair thing to ask about.

If you have no photos at all

This is the brand-new-owner situation, and it is worth saying plainly: it is not a reason to delay your website. A site with no job photos still gets you found, still explains what you do, still takes quote requests, and still beats having nothing while you wait for a portfolio that builds itself one job at a time.

What you can use right now:

Your truck and your gear. A lettered vehicle, a clean van, your tools laid out, your ladder rack. This is real, it is yours, and it reads as a working business.
You. One good photo of you in work clothes, outdoors, looking at the camera. For a one-person business this is the most valuable image on the site.
Work you did as an employee. Perfectly fine to show, as long as you describe your role honestly - "work I completed while employed at" rather than implying your new company did it. If you took the photos yourself and did the work yourself, say so.
Your license, insurance, or certification card. Not exciting, but for a newly licensed contractor it is proof, and proof is what a stranger is looking for.
Your town. A recognizable local street or landmark signals you are actually from here, which matters more to a homeowner than most owners expect.

Then set one rule for yourself: photograph every job for the next three months. Before shot when you arrive, progress shot mid-job, wide and close-up when you finish. It takes a minute per job. By your tenth job you will have a better gallery than most established shops in your town, because most of them never got in the habit.

Where the photos go, and what to write under them

You do not need a separate gallery page to start. Put your strongest wide shot at the top as the main image, one photo alongside each service you offer, and a before-and-after pair somewhere in the middle of the page. That is a complete, convincing site.

Give each one a one-line caption saying what it is and where: "Interior repaint, 1950s colonial - two coats over stripped trim." "Panel upgrade in a 1920s rowhouse." Captions do two jobs at once. They tell a homeowner in the same kind of house that you have done this exact thing, and they put the words people actually search for - your services, your area, the type of home - onto the page in a natural way. Name the file something similar before you upload it, too. "kitchen-repaint-towson.jpg" is better than "IMG_4471.jpg."

Where RunCabin fits

Not having photos ready is exactly the thing that stalls a website, so a RunCabin site is built so it never blocks you. Your preview goes live with generated imagery in place so you can see the finished shape of the site immediately, and then you swap in real photos of your own work as you shoot them - upload them yourself, or just ask and we place them. Sections you leave empty simply do not appear; you never end up with a page of fake filler pretending to be your business.

Be clear-eyed about that placeholder imagery, though: it is there to show you the layout, not to pass as your work. Real photos of your own jobs are what convince a homeowner, and they should replace the placeholders as soon as you have them. The point is that you get a working website today and a growing gallery over the next few months, instead of a folder of good intentions and no site. Changing a photo, adding a before-and-after, or reordering the gallery is part of the flat $39.99/mo - no setup fee, no contract, no waiting on someone else's queue.

See your site before you have the photos

We build a real preview with your name, your services, and your city - before you pay anything. Add your own job photos whenever you are ready. Sixty seconds, no card.

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