What is the best photography tip for a business website?
The best business website photography tip is simple: show the real thing. Your actual lobby, treatment room, kitchen, warehouse or shopfront, the people a customer will meet, and the products they will receive.
A visitor comparing three clinics or five boutique hotels on a phone is looking for proof that you exist and that the place matches the promise. Real photos give that proof. Stock photos, however polished, tell them nothing.
You do not need a big budget. A modern phone, good light and a clear shot list will cover most pages of a small business site. For the hero image and team portraits, a half-day with a photographer is often worth it. The rest of this guide explains both routes, plus how to prepare the files and handle consent under Thailand's PDPA.
Visual fashions come and go, and you can read about current web design trends elsewhere on this blog. Authentic photography is one thing that has not gone out of style, because it answers the question every visitor has: is this place real, and is it for me?
What stock photos cost you
- The same smiling receptionist appears on competitors' sites.
- Western offices and faces can feel out of place for a Bangkok business.
- Visitors who arrive and find a different interior feel misled.
A shot list for every page
Work page by page rather than shooting at random. Print this list, walk through your premises and tick off each shot. Take each one both wide (landscape) and tall (portrait), because the same image will be cropped differently on desktop and phone.
- Homepage heroOne strong image of what you do or where you do it: the dining room at service, the treatment room ready, the product in use. Leave calm space for a headline.
- Founder and teamNatural portraits against a plain or on-site background, same framing and light for everyone.
- WorkspaceReception, working areas and details that show care: clean tools, tidy counters, the view.
- Products or servicesEach product on a plain background, plus one or two in context. For services, show the moment of work, not a posed handshake.
- ProcessThree to five steps of how you work, useful for about and service pages.
- Exterior and entranceThe building front, the sign, the door and any landmark next to it, so first-time visitors recognise the place when they arrive.
- Details for small spacesClose-ups for cards and thumbnails: texture, a dish, a logo on a uniform.
Shooting with a phone
A recent phone camera is more than good enough for a website. What makes photos look amateur is almost always light, angle and clutter, not the device.
Work with Bangkok light
- Avoid the harsh sun around midday. It throws hard shadows under eyes and blows out white walls. Early morning and late afternoon give softer, warmer light.
- Indoors, turn off mixed ceiling lights where you can and use window light from the side. Mixed warm and cool bulbs give faces an odd colour cast.
- On a bright overcast day, shoot exteriors: the sky acts like a giant softbox.
- Watch reflections in glass shopfronts and mirrors, including yourself.
Keep it steady and straight
- Brace your elbows or use a small tripod. Tap to focus, then lower exposure slightly so whites keep detail.
- Hold the phone level. Tilted verticals in rooms make spaces feel smaller and cheap.
- Use the main lens, not digital zoom. Walk closer instead.
- Wipe the lens. A greasy lens is the most common cause of hazy photos.
Clear the frame
Remove cables, bins, price stickers, handwritten notes and personal bags. Straighten cushions and chairs. For products, a sheet of white card and a window give a clean background for very little money.
Keep a consistent look
Pick one approach and stick to it across the site: the same time of day, the same framing height for portraits, similar colour warmth. If you edit, use one preset for everything rather than adjusting each photo differently.
When should you hire a photographer?
Hire a professional when the images carry a lot of weight: a hotel or restaurant where the room or the food is the product, portraits of doctors or lawyers, or a hero image you will use for years. That is why photos lead on well-made hotel and resort websites and restaurant websites. Everyday updates, such as a new dish or a new display, can then be shot on a phone in the same style.
How to brief one
- Send the shot list above, marked with which page each image is for.
- Say where the images will appear: wide banners, square cards, tall phone crops. Ask for space around the subject so the developer can crop.
- Share two or three reference images for mood, and a note on colours from your brand rules.
- Book the time of day that suits the light, and plan who needs to be on site.
- Agree the delivery format: full-resolution JPEGs, lightly edited, with consistent colour.
Agree the rights in writing
Do not assume who owns the photos: put it in the contract. The agreement should state who holds the rights and cover use on your website, social posts and printed materials, for as long as you need. Ask whether the photographer may use the images in their own portfolio, and whether that is acceptable to you and to any staff or customers in the shots.
People in photos: consent and PDPA
Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (2019) defines personal data as information that can identify a person, directly or indirectly. A clear photo of a face on your website fits that description. So a team page, a photo of a customer at your restaurant or a patient in your clinic is personal data processing, and you need a lawful basis for it.
For marketing photos on a public website, written consent is the practical and safest route. It is not legal advice for your specific case, and if you handle sensitive situations such as healthcare, speak to a lawyer. But as a working habit:
- Staff: ask each person to sign a short release that says where the photo will appear (website, social media, print) and for how long. Do not make it a hidden clause in the employment contract.
- Customers and guests: ask before you shoot, use a signed release for anyone recognisable, and shoot from behind or out of focus when you cannot get one.
- Patients: treat clinic photos with particular care. Health information is sensitive data under the PDPA, and a photo taken during treatment can reveal it.
- Children: get consent from a parent or guardian, and think twice before using the image at all.
- Withdrawal: people can withdraw consent. Keep a simple log of who agreed, and be ready to remove a photo quickly when someone leaves or asks.
Keep the signed forms with your other PDPA records. Your privacy notice should also mention that you use photos on your website.
How do you prepare photos for the web?
Full-size phone photos are several megabytes each. Uploaded as they are, they slow every page, which hurts most on mobile data. A short export routine fixes that.
A simple export guide
- Size: resize to what the layout needs. Around 2,000 pixels wide is plenty for a full-width hero; cards and thumbnails need far less. Your developer can tell you the exact slots.
- Format: WebP gives smaller files than JPEG at similar quality and is supported by current browsers. WordPress can serve it.
- Compression: compress until you just start to see a difference, then step back one notch.
- File names: describe the picture in plain words, for example deluxe-river-view-room.webp, not IMG_4821.webp.
- Crops: keep the subject near the centre with space around it, so the same image works as a wide desktop banner and a taller phone crop.
Alt text that describes
Alt text is read aloud by screen readers and shown when an image fails to load. Describe what is in the picture in one short sentence: "Two therapists preparing a treatment room with fresh towels". Do not list keywords. Purely decorative images can have empty alt text. Our guide to website accessibility covers the wider rules.
If you run a larger site, fix image ratios and styles once in your theme rather than per page. That is one of the jobs of design systems for websites, and it keeps a gallery of phone photos looking like a set.
Stock and AI images
Stock and AI images are not forbidden. They are just the wrong tool for anything that claims to show your business.
When they are acceptable
- Abstract or background images on blog articles, where no one expects to see your premises.
- Illustrating an idea, such as a map, a concept or a season, rather than a real place or person.
- Placeholders during a build, replaced before launch.
When to avoid them
- Team pages, "our clinic", "our rooms", "our kitchen" and any image a visitor will read as a real photo of you.
- Stock faces presented as your customers or staff, which mislead visitors and damage trust when noticed.
- AI images of products, food or interiors that do not exist in that form.
If you use AI-generated images, a short caption or note saying so is the honest approach. On our own site we follow the same rule we suggest here: no stock photos and no invented office or team photos.
Photos work together with words. Pair this guide with our website copywriting tips that turn visitors into leads, and if you are setting visual rules for the long term, see brand guidelines for websites. To see how images affect enquiries, our conversion rate basics explain what to test.
When we build a site, our design process plans image slots, crops and a shot list with you before any page is designed, so your photos fit on day one. Our Starter package begins from THB 10,000 and the Business package from THB 30,000, both indicative one-time prices; get a written quote for your own project.
More on web design
Sources
- Google Search Central: Image SEO best practices
- Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (2019), English translation, Ministry of Digital Economy and Society
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish. This guide was written by the Website Development Bangkok team. More about us