The finished photograph is not the proof. The pair is, and the pair only works if the camera did not move.
Every trade website has photographs of finished work, and a customer looking at one has no idea whether that room was a wreck or already nearly fine.
So the work goes up in pairs, taken from the same place, and the difference does the arguing. It is the one kind of gallery a customer studies rather than scrolls, and it is worth going back for the shot you did not take.
If the camera moved, the eye spends its time working out the geometry instead of seeing the change. Standing in the same place is the whole technique.
Take the before even when you are in a hurry, because you cannot go back for it. A finished job with no before is a photograph, not proof.
Kitchen, two coats, three days. That is the sentence that turns a picture into a quote in somebody's head, and it is the one thing most galleries leave off.
Say roughly what the job cost if you can bear to. It is the fastest way to stop being rung by people who were never going to book.
The change is the argument, and it needs both halves to exist.
A moved camera makes the eye solve a puzzle instead of seeing the difference.
What the job was and how long it took, which is what turns a picture into an enquiry.
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Drawn rather than described, the page, the address, and what it can switch on.
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Open one. It is the live site in a frame, not a screenshot, so what you see is what it looks like right now.
Then that job is a photograph rather than a pair. Put a note in the van about taking them, because you cannot go back for it.
It is the whole thing. If the angle changes, the viewer spends the moment working out what moved instead of seeing the work.
Six to ten strong ones. This is a gallery people study, so a small number of good ones holds attention better than thirty.
A rough figure or a range if you can. It stops the calls that were never going to become jobs and encourages the ones that will.
Sparingly. A third picture in the middle is interesting; six of them turn a proof into a diary.
Ask before you shoot and respect the answer. A note on the page saying some clients prefer not to appear reads well.
For a trade, usually: a portfolio suits work judged on its own, and a pair suits work judged on the change.
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