How To Take Good Pictures and Photos for Posting on Craigslist

Being an avid Craigslister, I've learned a few things about how to take good photos and pictures of items to post on a Craigslist ad. I have sold everything from plants to World War 2 ham equipment on Craigslist, and I venture to say that good photos have probably been responsible for 90% of my sales.

Being a photographer of newborn babies (cool job, huh?) has also helped me to take good photos, but even an amateur photographer can learn how to successfully take good shots, post your item and sell it on Craigslist. Below I'll give you a few tips and hints on taking good photos.

The last thing I sold on Craigslist was my grand-daughters bike. Since my daughter-in law does not use the computer, I offered to post the bike on Craigslist for her. To the right here you will notice the pictures that I took of her bike.

You will notice the first picture that I took was of the entire bike. This is important so the potential buyer can see the whole item (This is especially important when selling cars. Buyers would like to see as much of the car as possible)

In the second picture I took some close-up shots of the training wheels that were being included in the sale (I figured that who ever bought the bike would be buying it for a new learner) Sure enough, the person that did buy it told me that the training wheels were VERY important to her. So when selling things on Craigslist make sure you take photos of the important details of what you are selling.

In the third picture I took a photo of the helmet and part of the seat. You will notice that I took a close-up photo so that the buyer could see what excellent condition the helmet and seat were in. Again, details are important!

The last photo I took shows the name of the bike "Mongoose". Since Mongoose is a good brand name bike, I wanted to make sure that the potential buyer would clearly see the high quality bike they were getting. Taking a good shot of the brand of what you are selling is always a good idea.

Since Craigslist only has enough room to add four photos to your listing, I always take advantage and post all four photos (they have since changed this to 8 photos) The better the photos, the better chance you will have of selling your item. There is a way to provide a link to your photos via links in your posting but I don't like to post that way. I think it's more important to have the photos with the listing. It sounds crazy but some people won't click on an external link (either they may think it's a site that may give them a virus or one more click is burdensome to them)

So rules of thumb here: I would always post photos with your Craigslist listings because visuals are very important in any sale. I mean hey, if you went to the store and could not see what you were buying, would you still buy it? People shopping on Craigslist need as much information on the items as possible and the best detailed photos that you can provide. Good luck Craigslisting (and BTW it's perfectly fine to use your cell phone camera to take photos as long as it takes decent ones)

(Dorsi Diaz is an artist, photographer and writer that writes on a variety of creative topics here at HubPages)