Now that nearly everyone has a digital camera, businesses will often try to save money by shooting their own photos. This is often the case for photos I receive for Web design projects. Unfortunately many of the photos have severe flaws because the scene wasn’t properly staged before the shutter was clicked. I wrote about this a couple of years ago in Before You Click the Shutter, Look Carefully at What You Are Shooting which shows some really funny images.

Now let’s look at a portion of a recent photo I received.

I’ve cropped the example to show many of the flaws in the photo. Three different workers are shown and one looks as if he is picking his nose. There is a rag on one part of a counter, a soda cup and spray bottle on another. Unfortunately it was very difficult to show off this client’s product without showing some of the many flaws.

Simply moving some of the items listed and asking the workers to step out of the picture for a minute would have provided a much better original. This would help to show off the product better and would also save the client money since less time would be required to edit the photo.

So if you, or your clients, want to show your own photos then you need to look carefully at the scene before you click the shutter. It can make a huge difference!