In the catalogue, listings are a row of cards. Each card shows a photograph, then a title, then a price. The photograph is the part a client sees first, and it is usually what decides whether they read the rest.
This is unfair to good freelancers with bad phones, but it is easy to fix. Almost nothing here is about the camera. It is about light, background and a little patience before you press Post a listing.
Light matters most
Nearly every disappointing photograph is a light problem, not a phone problem.
The best light is free: daylight, indoors, near a window, on a bright but overcast day. Direct midday sun is harsh and leaves black shadows. Deep evening light turns everything yellow.
Two habits fix most of it:
- Turn off the flash. It flattens the subject and puts a bright spot where the detail was.
- Turn off the ceiling light and use the window. Mixing warm bulbs with daylight is what makes photographs look muddy and slightly orange.
Stand so the light comes from the side or from behind you, not from behind the subject. Photographing something against a bright window turns it into a silhouette.
Clear the background
The background says as much about you as the work does.
You do not need a studio. You need one clear surface: a table wiped down, a plain wall, a clean floor. Remove everything from the frame that is not the work: cables, packaging, cups, a phone charger, a stray tool.
For work done in someone’s home or on a site, this matters more, not less. A finished bathroom photographed with the tools still in the frame reads as unfinished.
Weak: the work on a table, clutter around it, a bag and cables in shot.
Better: the same work, the table wiped clear, nothing else in the frame.
Shoot a set of three
A single photograph rarely explains a job. Three usually do, and they answer the three questions a client has:
- The general shot. The whole thing, straight on, from the height of the object rather than from above. This is your main photo.
- The detail. One close view of the part you are proud of: a seam, an edge, a finish, a joint. This is what says the work was done carefully.
- Context or scale. The work in place, or beside something familiar, so the size is obvious. A photograph of a wooden box could be a jewellery box or a chest.
For digital work the same three exist in another form: the finished result, a detail at full size, and the result in use, on a screen, on a sign, on packaging.
How it will look on the card
Two practical things about how photographs appear on the site.
The card in the catalogue crops your photograph to a 4:3 landscape shape. If your subject sits right at the top or the very edge, it can be cut. Leave a little space around it and keep it near the middle, and the crop will not hurt you.
A listing takes one main photo and up to four more in the gallery. That is five, which is a good number: the general shot as the main photo, then the detail, the context and one or two extras. Fewer than three feels thin. There is no benefit in trying to squeeze in the same angle four times.
Technical things you do not need to worry about
You can upload straight from your phone. The site does the tidying:
- Each file must be under 5 MB. A normal phone photograph is well under that.
- The image is converted and resized automatically, so you do not need to change the format or shrink it yourself.
- When your listing is approved, a small Freelancinu watermark is added to the photographs. That is expected, it is not something you did wrong.
Because the site re-saves the image, take the photograph at your phone’s normal quality and leave it alone. Do not screenshot a photograph to make it smaller, which is the fastest way to lose the sharpness you had.
A little editing helps, a lot of it hurts
On the phone, three adjustments are usually enough:
- Cropping. Cut the empty space and centre the subject.
- Straightening. A tilted horizon or a leaning wall is the thing that most often makes a photograph look amateur.
- A little brightness. If the photo came out dark, lift it a little.
Stop there. Heavy filters, strong contrast and oversaturated colours make the work look different from how it will look when it arrives, and that is a complaint waiting to happen. The photograph is a promise. Keep it one you can keep.
What never to upload
- Photographs of someone else’s work. It is the fastest way to lose a client’s trust permanently, and someone will eventually recognise the picture.
- Images from the internet with someone else’s watermark. These are usually someone else’s property, and they look exactly like what they are.
- Screenshots from social media. Compressed twice, usually with someone else’s interface in the frame.
- Blurry shots. If it is blurry, take it again. It costs a minute.
If there is nothing to photograph
Some services have no obvious object: consulting, translation, accounting, tutoring, repairs done at a client’s home where nothing photographs well.
You still have options. Photograph the tools of the work, the workspace, a printed result, a before and after pair, or simply yourself at work. A calm, well lit photograph of a person working reads far better than an empty grey placeholder.
A checklist
Before you publish:
- Is it daylight, with the flash off?
- Is the background clear of anything that is not the work?
- Do you have a general shot, a detail and something that shows scale?
- Is the subject near the middle, with room around it for the 4:3 crop?
- Is the horizon straight?
- Is everything in the photographs genuinely your own work?
A phone, a window and ten minutes are enough. It is the cheapest improvement available to a listing, and it works before a client has read a single word.
