How to Photograph Your Car for a Marketplace Listing

I shoot listing photos for people selling their car, usually straight after the clean while it's still sitting here looking its best. Enough people have asked how I do it that I figured I'd just write it down. Do it yourself off your phone if you like — it's all here.

A car that photographs well sells faster and holds its price. A car photographed badly looks like it's been neglected, even when it hasn't.

Clean it first. Genuinely.

This isn't me spruiking. A film of road grime doesn't look like dust in a photo, it looks like a car that's never been looked after, and buyers read that as "what else got ignored". Dirty wheels are the worst offender — they're in nearly every exterior shot and they drag the whole listing down.

Do the inside too. Crumbs in the seat rails and a dusty dash show up hard under a phone flash.

Six phone-camera rules that do most of the work

• Crouch to headlight height. Standing up and shooting down makes any car look small and sad. Get the lens level with the headlights and it suddenly looks like a car ad.

• Turn the front wheels toward the camera. One second of work, and it's the difference between a photo and a good photo — you see the face of the wheel instead of the edge of the tyre.

• Stay on the 1x lens. Never the 0.5x ultrawide. It bends the panels, stretches whatever's nearest and makes the car look cheap. Take a step back instead of zooming out.

• Turn Portrait mode off. The fake blur smears the edges, and buyers assume you're hiding damage. Plenty of listing sites reject it too.

• Put the sun behind you, not behind the car. Shooting into the sun blows out the background and drops the car into shadow. Overcast is honestly the easiest light there is.

• Check the doors for your own reflection. You standing in the driver's door holding a phone up is the single biggest giveaway of a rushed listing. Move a metre to the side and it's gone.

One more: shoot landscape, with a bit of room either side of the car. Facebook Marketplace crops your photo square, and if you've filled the frame it'll chop the nose or the tail off.

The 15 shots, in the order I take them

This is one lap around the car and then in through the driver's door, so you're never doubling back. Take two or three of each and keep the best one.

Outside — seven:

• Front three-quarter from the driver's side. This is the hero shot and the one that goes first in the listing.

• Front-on, square to the car.

• Side-on, driver's side, whole car in frame.

• Rear three-quarter from the driver's side.

• Rear-on.

• Passenger side flank.

• One front wheel, close up, clean.

Inside — six:

• The cockpit shot, standing at the open driver's door — dash, wheel and screen in one frame.

• The odometer, with the kilometres actually legible. Buyers scroll for this one.

• The centre console and gear selector.

• The front seats, shot from the back seat.

• The rear seats.

• The boot, open and empty.

Detail — two:

• The engine bay, if it's presentable.

• Whatever the car's actual selling point is — the tow bar, the sunroof, the new tyres, the roof racks. If you'd mention it in the ad, photograph it.

What about scratches and dents?

My honest opinion is include them. A buyer who finds a scratch in the photos and turns up anyway is a buyer who's already accepted it. One who finds it in your driveway feels like they've been had, and that's where a sale falls over. It's your car and your call, but I'd photograph the marks rather than angle around them.

Or drop it to me and I'll do it

If you'd rather not muck around with it, I shoot the photos here as part of the booking, straight after the clean while the car's spotless. Six photos is $20, the full fifteen is $40, and they come back to you the same day as a link you can download straight to your phone and upload to Marketplace, Gumtree or Carsales.

The cleans themselves are $45 for the exterior, $80 for inside and out, and $120 for the premium. Same price whatever you drive — a big 4WD costs the same as a little hatch. No size loading, no add-ons, no hidden costs.

I'm drop-off only at Bateau Bay and I clean every car myself. Book a time at lawsonscarcleaning.com, or send me a message and I'll sort you out.