How to take good photos of your shop with a phone

Before anyone walks into your shop, they look at it. On Google Maps, on Instagram, on a directory page, the photos are often the first thing a customer judges, and a dark, blurry picture of a counter tells them very little. The phone in your pocket is good enough. What makes the difference is light, angle and knowing which photos to take.

Before you shoot: clean the lens

A phone lens spends the day in pockets and hands, and a thin layer of grease makes every photo look hazy, with glowing halos around lights. Wipe the lens with a soft cloth (a glasses cloth or a clean cotton T-shirt) before every session. It takes five seconds and it is often the biggest improvement you can make.

• Charge the phone and free some storage first, so you are not interrupted halfway through.
• Tidy the space: boxes, cables, the broom in the corner, the plastic bags on the counter. The camera sees everything you stopped noticing.
• If your phone adds a date stamp or a watermark to photos, turn that setting off.

Use daylight, and plan around power cuts

Light matters more than the phone. The best light for a shop is daylight: through the front door, through a window, or outside for the storefront.

• Shoot during the day. Morning and late afternoon light is softer. Midday sun from straight above puts hard shadows under awnings and signs.
• Use window light for the inside and for products. Put the subject near a window with the light coming from the side, not from behind it.
• Avoid mixed lighting. Daylight from the door, yellow bulbs and a white LED tube in the same picture give products and faces strange colours in different corners. Switch off the lights that do not match, or choose a spot lit by one kind of light only.
• Skip the harsh flash. A direct flash flattens everything, bounces off glass and packaging, and gives people shiny foreheads. If a corner is too dark, bring the product to the light instead.
• Plan around power cuts. If the shop switches between the grid, a generator and batteries during the day, some lights may be off or dimmer depending on the hour. Take the inside photos when the shop looks the way customers usually see it, ideally while daylight is also coming in.

Hold the phone level and straight

Crooked photos look careless, even when the shop is spotless. Three habits fix most of it:

1. 1Hold the phone level. Keep it upright, not tilted back or forward. If your camera settings offer a grid, turn it on: the lines help you keep things straight.
2. 2Keep vertical lines vertical. Door frames, shelves and walls should run straight up and down. If they lean inward, you are pointing the phone up or down. Step back and hold it straight instead.
3. 3Shoot at eye level. Photograph the shop the way a customer sees it when they walk in, with the phone at about the height of your eyes. Photos taken from the hip or held above your head make a shop look strange.

Use the main lens when you can. Zooming in with your fingers lowers quality, so walk closer instead. A wide angle lens fits a small shop into one frame, but it bends the edges of the picture, so keep the phone especially level when you use it.

The photo set a directory page needs

Someone looking at your page wants to answer three questions: is this the place I am looking for, does it look good, and what will I find there. These photos answer them:

• The storefront from the street, from across the road if you can, so people recognise it when they arrive. Include the shop next door or a landmark if it helps: on a busy street in Hamra or Tripoli, "the green door next to the pharmacy" is how people find you.
• The sign, readable, photographed straight on.
• The inside, wide, from the door, then one or two closer shots of the counter, the chairs or the workshop.
• Your products or your work: the cakes, a finished haircut, the dishes, a repaired car.
• The team, only with each person's consent, and only people who are happy to appear online.
• The menu or price list, if you have one, straight on and readable. Replace it when prices change, because an old photo of a price list leads to arguments at the till.

Ten good photos do more than forty similar ones.

Product photos on a plain background

For products, the background matters almost as much as the product itself.

1. 1Put the product on a plain surface: a sheet of white card, a clean wooden table, a plain wall behind it. Remove everything else from the frame.
2. 2Place it near a window, with the light coming from the side. A white card held on the other side bounces light back into the shadows.
3. 3Let the product fill most of the frame, and take a few angles: the front, from slightly above, and one close detail.
4. 4Use the same background for all your products, so your page or catalogue looks like one shop and not a pile of different pictures.

These are the same photos you will use in a WhatsApp Business catalogue and on Instagram. Instagram for small businesses in Lebanon covers how to use them there.

Keep it honest: filters, stock photos and consent

• No heavy filters. A small fix to brightness or a crooked angle is fine. Heavy filters change colours, and a customer who receives a cake that looks nothing like the photo feels misled. Google's photo guidelines for business profiles ask for photos that are in focus, well lit, and without significant alterations or excessive filters.
• No stock photos presented as yours. A picture of someone else's shop or a generic image from the internet misleads customers, and they notice the moment they walk in. Using an image you do not have the rights to can also get it removed.
• No customers without permission. Ask before you photograph anyone, and ask again before you post it. For children, ask the parents. When in doubt, shoot while the shop is empty or leave people out of the frame.

File size, landscape and portrait

Shoot at your phone's normal full resolution and keep the originals. You can always make a smaller copy later, but you cannot make a small photo sharp again.

• Landscape (horizontal) for the storefront, the inside and cover images. Most websites and directory pages show a wide image at the top.
• Portrait (vertical) for Instagram stories, reels and WhatsApp status, which fill a phone screen.
• Square is a safe choice for product grids and catalogues.

When in doubt, take the important shots both ways. For Google Business Profile, photos must be JPG or PNG files between 10 KB and 5 MB, with a recommended resolution of 720 by 720 pixels (the minimum is 250 by 250). A normal phone photo is well above that. Upload the original file from your phone rather than a screenshot or a copy forwarded through a messaging app, which is often compressed and softer.

A simple shot list

Take this list with you on a bright morning. For most small shops it fits into half an hour.

1. 1Wipe the lens. Tidy the entrance and the counter.
2. 2The storefront from across the street, landscape, phone level.
3. 3The sign, straight on.
4. 4The inside from the door, landscape, at eye level.
5. 5Two or three details: the counter, the workspace, the display.
6. 6Five to ten products on a plain background, near a window.
7. 7The team, with their consent.
8. 8The menu or price list, straight on and readable.
9. 9Two or three portrait versions for Instagram stories and WhatsApp status.

Then pick the best ones and put the same set everywhere you are listed: Google Maps, Instagram, WhatsApp Business and Lebanon Local. Photos show what your shop looks like, and the text says the rest: see how to write a business description that gets found.