Car Dealership Stock Photos: How We Shoot Them

We photograph stock for car dealerships every week. The photos go up on the dealer's website, and the same visit gives us the reels and posts for their social media.

Once a week, every new arrival

We go out to the dealership once a week and photograph every car that's come in since our last visit. For one dealership we work with, that's usually between 10 and 15 cars a week.

The same spot, every time

Every car is shot in the same place, in front of the dealership with the building or the sign behind it. The whole stock list ends up looking consistent, and every photo shows whose forecourt the car is on.

The photos we take of each car

Each car gets the same set of shots:

• Front and rear, straight on
• Front and rear three-quarters, shot low
• The wheels, up close
• The badge and the lights
• The steering wheel and the dash
• The front seats, from the open door
• The back seats
• The screen
• Anything worth showing off, like the speakers or the seat controls

Edited and back the next day

We edit the photos and send them back the next day, so the car can go up on the website straight away.

The same visit covers social media

While we're there, we film a short reel of each car at the dealership, with the sign in the shot: low angles, the lights and the wheels, set to music. On the accounts we run, every reel goes up with the car's price, mileage, engine, gearbox and spec in the caption, along with the sales team's phone numbers.

That's how one dealership we work with posts new stock nearly every day. Each reel averages four to five enquiries. We've written more about how that content turns into leads, and the full dealership stories are in our portfolio.

Common questions