Over the past 2½ years, I have been in charge of photography and quality control at Leikin Motor Companies. When I started, we had an outside company taking pictures of our inventory outside. As you can imagine, the weather played a big part in the quality of the photos. That was a problem as well when a winter picture was still showing when Spring arrived. We eventually decided to take our own pictures and hired an on-site photographer. That has been a good thing as we have more control over the quality of the photographs we are putting on the various websites.
Until recently, our pictures were taken after hours in a corner of the Mercedes-Benz service drive. That was a pretty good situation until the sun shone through the huge windows on the west side of the building. And the exit sign and door in the back of each corner shot were not the best additions to the product — especially as that is the “money shot” for advertising on the various websites. You really want a good shot to make customers want to “click here for more information.” We looked into curtains or shades to cover the windows but the garage door would also have to be covered. So, what could we do?
Our latest indoor location is a huge step forward for car photography. With good lighting and a clean atmosphere, the pictures are looking much better. And when I uploaded several to our website, I was surprised at how good the pictures looked in the list of cars available. Click here to see what I mean. We are still a work in progress. But I’m excited at the forward progress we have made thus far.
