Photos for a trade website
Your own pictures from your own sites decide whether someone believes the business is real. What you can shoot yourself, what an on-site visit adds, and how the rights to it all get settled.
In short and in plain language
This page is about photos for your website. Your own pictures show that your business is real.
You often have shots on your phone already. We look through them with you. What is missing, we take on a visit to you.
We check first which picture may be shown. We only show people who agree first.
Once everything is paid, the pictures belong to your business. You can use them in other places too.
Help with photos is part of the fixed price for the website. Write to us or give us a call.
Key figures
94 %
of trade businesses run their own website (Bitkom)
74 %
find that customers have become more critical (Bitkom)
80 %
use digital channels to reach new talent (Bitkom)
3
image formats per motif: jpg, webp and avif
Images are part of the project · net, plus VAT
- The on-site visit is not billed separately, it is part of the project
- Included: selection, cropping and delivery in several sizes and formats
- Included: settling which image may be shown and which may not
- The shots stay with the business and can be reused anywhere
Photo support carries no separate price. Selection, cropping, rights clearance and the on-site visit are part of the fixed price for the website, which starts at 1,490 euros net. For an existing site the relaunch applies instead, from 2,900 euros net. Ongoing afterwards: website support from 49 euros net per month, cancelable with one month's notice to the end of the month, no minimum term. Hosting in Germany from 15 euros net per month, cancelable with one month's notice to the end of the month, no minimum term. The full breakdown is on the pricing page. All prices net, plus VAT.
Prices as of September 2026.
Almost every business already has pictures. They sit on the owner's phone, in an apprentice's camera roll and in a folder nobody has opened for two years. What is missing is rarely the shot, it is the decision about which of them belongs on the site. That is the work we take on when a website for tradespeople is built: what exists becomes an image set, and what is missing is shot at your place.
Anatomy of an image set
Why your own pictures carry more weight than bought ones
A stock motif shows a spotless workshop in a country none of us has ever worked in. It looks tidy, and it looks interchangeable, because the same image sits on dozens of other sites. Someone looking to have a facade painted is not after a glossy impression but a reference point: does this look like work I would get in my street. Only a picture from the local area, with the local vehicle and the weather we actually have here, provides that.
The connection is straightforward: 94 percent (Bitkom) of trade businesses run their own website, and 74 percent (Bitkom) find that customers have become more critical. When almost everyone has a site, the existence of a website no longer decides anything, what is on it does. On top of that, 72 percent (Bitkom) of businesses see online customer reviews as a major opportunity to win new work and build trust. Review and image work together, because both answer the same unspoken question about whether real people work here. What such a site looks like when its own pictures carry it is shown in the design examples.
The essentials in five sentences
- Most of the images already exist, they are just scattered across phones and old folders.
- Shoot yourself what you can shoot yourself: the picture taken right after tidying up is usually the best one.
- The on-site visit closes the gaps there is never time for during work: yard, vehicle, team and the two or three lead images.
- People, other people's houses and number plates need clearing before an image goes online, not afterwards.
- Photo support has no separate price, it sits inside the fixed price for the website from 1,490 euros net.
What you can shoot yourself
A current phone produces shots that are entirely sufficient for a website. What makes the difference is not megapixels but timing and viewpoint. The six points below cost less than five minutes per job and save half a day of searching later.
Shoot after tidying up
The best picture happens once tools, cable drum and packaging are gone and before the van pulls away. Two minutes that would otherwise be spent waiting.
Put the light behind you
The sun belongs behind you, not behind the subject. Backlight turns a clean facade into a grey surface nobody can rescue afterwards.
Hold it landscape, not upright
Websites are wider than they are tall. A landscape shot fits the top of any page, an upright one has to be cropped and loses what matters.
Three shots per job
A wide view so the subject is clear. A close-up of the actual work. One detail where the care taken becomes visible.
Capture the before as well
The old state takes twenty seconds and cannot be recovered later. A before-and-after pair makes the most convincing section on any service page.
Note the place and year
An image without context is only decoration. With place, year and task it becomes evidence that also counts for local visibility.
What an on-site visit adds
Some pictures never happen during normal work, because nobody steps back mid-job to photograph the yard. That is what we come round for. Half a day is usually enough for two finished properties, the yard and the team. The date follows the weather and your diary, not the other way round, and it interrupts the work only where that cannot be avoided.
How a photo visit runs
Half a day, not a photo shoot in the classic sense
Nothing is set up and nobody is placed in position. We come along, record what is happening anyway, and take the quieter motifs in between that carry the transitions on the site. By the end of the day there are considerably more shots than needed, and we make the selection together with you. What comes out belongs to you after full payment and works just as well for vehicle signwriting, quotation folders, job adverts or your Google Business Profile.
- Two or three finished properties, chosen together beforehand
- Yard, store and the signwritten vehicle
- The team during actual work, only with prior consent
- Tools and materials as quiet in-between images
- Selection and cropping afterwards, with no extra invoice
From the job to the finished image on the page
Review what exists
You upload everything you have, unsorted and without pre-selection. We sort it and tell you which gaps remain. There are usually fewer than the business itself expects.
Define what is needed
The page plan determines how many images are needed and for what: home page, one lead image per trade, finished work, the business and the team. Only then is it clear whether a visit is needed at all.
On-site visit
Half a day across selected properties and the yard. You say which sites may be shown, we handle the rest and the consent of the people in frame.
Selection and clearance
What remains from the day's take is what has a job to do on the site. For each image we record where it came from and who agreed. Anything unclear goes out now, not later.
Integration and delivery
Every image is cropped, stored in several sizes and modern formats and given a descriptive alternative text. The site then loads quickly on mobile data as well.
You upload everything you have, unsorted and without pre-selection. We sort it and tell you which gaps remain. There are usually fewer than the business itself expects.
The page plan determines how many images are needed and for what: home page, one lead image per trade, finished work, the business and the team. Only then is it clear whether a visit is needed at all.
Half a day across selected properties and the yard. You say which sites may be shown, we handle the rest and the consent of the people in frame.
What remains from the day's take is what has a job to do on the site. For each image we record where it came from and who agreed. Anything unclear goes out now, not later.
Every image is cropped, stored in several sizes and modern formats and given a descriptive alternative text. The site then loads quickly on mobile data as well.
Image rights, people and other people's property
This is the part that regularly causes trouble, usually not out of bad intent but out of habit. An image from a search engine is not free just because it can be downloaded. A finished bathroom in someone else's flat is a look into a private home. And anyone identifiable in the background has a say in whether they appear on a website. We settle all of that before publication, because afterwards it becomes tedious.
Every shot goes through the same check
Four questions before an image goes online
Where does the shot come from, has an identifiable person agreed, may the property be shown, and is there something in the background that does not belong there. For people we obtain written consent, stating clearly what the image is used for and how it can be withdrawn later. For private properties a short clearance from the owner is enough in practice, often combined with a request to keep house number and street sign out of the frame. The records stay with you at the business, not with us.
- Written consent for every identifiable person shown
- Owner clearance for shots taken at private properties
- House numbers, doorbell plates and number plates out of frame
- No images from third-party sources, not even as placeholders
- Withdrawal is possible: the image is replaced, not debated
- Former staff do not stay on the site for years, their picture is swapped at the next review
- Apprentices under eighteen need consent from a parent or guardian
- For shots on other people's land we ask in advance, even where the pavement would allow it
- Interior pictures show the work, not the occupants' furnishings
- Third-party brands, price tags and competitors' vehicles are kept out of frame
A motif from the web is not a placeholder
Shooting on site
On a building site the same rules apply as everywhere else, only under worse conditions. It is dusty, the light shifts and nobody has time. Even so these are the most credible pictures, because they show how the work is done and not just what comes out at the end. Anyone recruiting cannot avoid them: 80 percent (Bitkom) of businesses use digital channels to reach new talent, and 75 percent (Bitkom) see the skills shortage as a central problem. A careers page without real pictures of everyday work convinces nobody who is choosing an apprenticeship.
- Protective equipment is worn in every picture that goes online. A shot without a helmet or without fall protection is not used, however good it looks.
- Barriers, scaffolding and order in the background say more about a business than the subject in the foreground.
- People from other trades are not photographed without being asked first.
- Documents, plans and address labels do not belong in frame, not at the edge and not out of focus either.
- The tidy after-shot happens on the same day, otherwise it does not happen at all.
What is included and what is not
| Task | Included in the project price | Not part of it |
|---|---|---|
| Review of the existing image set | Yes, in full, even across several hundred files | not included |
| On-site visit with photography | Yes, usually half a day within the service area | Multi-day coverage across a season |
| Selection, cropping, delivery | Yes, in several sizes and modern formats | Extensive retouching or compositing |
| Alternative texts for accessibility | Yes, descriptive per image | not included |
| Clearing consents and permissions | Yes, templates and guidance | Legal advice on an individual case |
| Aerial photography | not included | Only via a third party with its own permit |
| Video footage and editing | not included | A project of its own, not part of the fixed price |
| Later replacement of single images | Via support from 49 euros net per month | Billed separately without a support plan |
The reason for this boundary is simple: a fixed price only holds while it is clear what it covers. Video and aerial work are projects of their own with their own effort and their own permits, so they are not in the package. Everything a website genuinely needs in the way of images is. What else belongs to the project is set out in the service overview, and the design side is described under web design for trade businesses.
Typical starting points with an image set
Example, not a client project. No particular outcome is assured.
Images age faster than words