Campaign photos on a budget: the six shots you need
You do not need a professional photographer to have a good campaign website. You need six honest photos, decent light, and a friend with a steady hand.
The photos on your site do a lot of quiet work. Before a voter reads a word of your bio, they have already decided whether you look like someone who lives here, listens, and shows up. Good photos say that. Stiff, dark or borrowed ones say something else.
The good news is that local campaigns rarely need a professional shoot. What they need is a short list of the right pictures, taken on purpose instead of grabbed in a hurry.
The six shots you need
Here is the list we ask every client for. With these, we can build a full site.
- A clear headshot. Shoulders up, looking at the camera, plain background. This goes on your about page, your endorsements page, press requests and the Facebook profile.
- You in the district. Standing somewhere voters will recognize: the town sign, the boat landing, the main road that floods, the school you are running to serve. Wide enough to show the place.
- You with people. Talking with a neighbor on a porch, shaking hands at the farmers market, listening to a small business owner. This is often your homepage photo.
- You at a public meeting. Seated in the audience at a council meeting, at the podium during public comment, or at a school board work session. It shows you already pay attention.
- Family (optional). If your family is comfortable being part of the campaign, one natural photo is plenty. If not, skip it. Nobody is owed a picture of your kids.
- Action. Knocking a door, putting up a sign, serving at a church fish fry, cleaning up a park. Something that shows work, not posing.
Your candidate bio and your photos should tell the same story. If your bio says you coached youth baseball for twelve years, a photo at the ballfield beats one more headshot.
Taking good photos with a phone
A recent phone is plenty for the web. The difference between a good phone photo and a bad one is almost always light, background and who is holding the camera.
Light
- Shoot outside in the early morning or late afternoon, or in open shade on a sunny day.
- Avoid harsh midday sun, which causes squinting and dark eye shadows.
- Indoors, face a window. Turn off overhead lights that cast a yellow or green tint.
- Do not stand with a bright window or sky behind you. Your face goes dark.
Background
- Look behind you before you shoot. Trash cans, parked cars and a pole "growing" out of your head ruin good photos.
- For the headshot, a plain wall, a hedge or a brick building works.
- For district shots, make sure the place is recognizable but not cluttered.
- Keep other candidates' signs, business logos you do not have permission to use, and government seals out of frame.
Camera habits
- Wipe the lens with your shirt first
- Have someone else take the photo, not a selfie
- Hold the phone at eye level, not below the chin
- Turn off beauty filters and heavy portrait effects
- Take 20 shots of each setup and pick the best two
Landscape for the hero, portrait for the headshot
This is the mistake we see most often. The big photo at the top of your homepage, the hero, is wide. If every photo you send is a tall portrait shot, we have to crop your head or your hands off to fill it.
| Use | Orientation | Tip |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage hero | Landscape (phone sideways) | Leave empty space on one side for the headline |
| Headshot | Portrait | Leave some room above your head |
| Issue pages | Landscape | Show the actual road, school or site you are writing about |
| Facebook header | Landscape, very wide | Keep your face near the center so it survives cropping |
When in doubt, take the same shot both ways.
Permission from people in your photos
Anyone recognizable in a campaign photo is now associated with your campaign. Some will be proud. Others work for the county, a school district or a business that stays out of politics, and could face real trouble.
- Ask before you post anyone whose face is clearly visible
- Get a parent or guardian's permission for every child, every time
- Keep a simple record, such as a text that says "Yes, you can use the photo"
- Be careful with people in uniform or at work; some public employees are limited in campaign activity
- Take a photo down promptly if someone asks
If you are a sheriff or county office candidate, uniform and agency-resource rules may also apply to you. See our sheriff and county offices page, and confirm with your state ethics office.
Do not use stock photos as if they were real
A stock photo of a smiling crowd, captioned as your town hall, is a bad idea. Someone will run a reverse image search, and the story becomes "candidate used fake supporters." That is a hard headline to recover from in a small county.
Stock images have a place: a texture behind a headline, a generic image of a classroom on a page about school funding, an icon. Use them only where nobody would think the people or places are part of your campaign. Real photos of real places beat polished fakes every time.
File sizes for the web
Phone photos are often several megabytes each. Put a dozen of those on a page and it loads slowly on a rural cell signal, which is exactly where many of your voters are.
- Send us the originals. Text and some email apps shrink photos badly. Use a shared folder or a file transfer link.
- For the web, resize. Hero images around 1,600 to 2,000 pixels wide are plenty. Headshots and inline photos can be smaller.
- Compress. Modern formats like WebP keep photos sharp at a fraction of the size.
- Write alt text. Describe each photo in a short sentence for screen reader users. Our accessibility guide explains how.
On CandidateLaunch sites, we handle resizing, compression and alt text for you. You send the photos. We make them fast.
Plan one photo afternoon
Do not spread this over six weeks. Pick one afternoon, recruit a friend with a good phone, and plan three stops: a plain wall for the headshot, a district landmark, and a place with people, such as a market or a community event. Bring a second shirt. Two hours is usually enough.
Once you have your photos and a 30-minute interview, we can have your site live in 7 days. See how it works, or start now.
Common questions
Can I take my campaign photos with a phone?
Yes. A recent phone in good natural light is enough for a local campaign website. Have someone else take the shots, clean the lens, and turn off heavy filters or beauty modes.
Can I use stock photos on my campaign website?
Only for backgrounds or illustrations, and never in a way that suggests the people or places are part of your campaign. Voters and reporters notice, and it costs you trust.
Do I need permission to post photos of supporters?
Ask before you post anyone who is clearly recognizable, and get a parent's permission for any child. A quick text saying yes is a good record to keep.