11 photography tips to make your camper listing stand out from the pack

Marcus Breitfeld provides 11 tips on how to best photograph your camper. 

VW, Renault, or a Mercedes…whichever campervan you happen to have they can all look great on camera! But how often do you see a picture of a camper and think ‘cool van, but why such a bad photo?’ The truth is that first impressions always count. Especially for rental listings. The good news is that it’s not hard to make your camper look it’s best in photos, you just have to pay attention to a few small details. With some minor adjustments I guarantee that you will be amazed by how your camper will suddenly shine from all angles.

Here I’ll show you 11 tips to keep in mind the next time you photograph your beloved camper.

Tip 1: Find the right moment for a camper photo

It’s certainly fun to just snap away and hope that afterwards you’ll have a great photo of your camper. But wait a moment, take a deep breath and think. Wouldn’t it be much better to take 5 photos and 3 of them are perfect!? That can be achieved just by taking a quick look at what’s around you. For example, if you’re standing on a pass in Croatia, with beautiful islands and the sea in the background, it would be great to get everything in the picture. So perhaps look around and climb on the rocks 20 meters behind you – that way you get the breathtaking landscape and your camper as the main star of the picture.

Tip 2: Rule of thirds

You haven’t heard of the “rule of thirds”? Then I’ll explain it to you briefly. You can divide any image into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. These are the lines in your display – two horizontal and two vertical.

Let’s go back to our example: The scene on the pass in Croatia. If you see, for example, that your camper is at the bottom right, sort of at the intersection of the rightmost and bottom third lines, I guarantee your picture will be perfect! Your van will be the focus of the picture framed by the incredible landscape.

Tip 3: Take horizontal pictures

If you want your camper to take up most of the frame, without a lot of frills around it, then shoot in horizontal (landscape) format. Pictures simply look a thousand times nicer in landscape format. But be careful, there are of course also situations where you can use the portrait format quite well.

Tip 4: Change of perspective

Looking at life from only one perspective quickly becomes boring. It’s the same with pictures of your camper. Imagine what your camper looks like from a bird’s- or frog’s-eye view. Cool right? So why not try taking a photo from the ground or a roof? But please no reckless experiments – a great photo isn’t worth falling off the roof!

Tip 5: Detailed view

Your camper is not just one big whole. It’s made up of so many great details so why not put them in the spotlight? For example, you can photograph your bike rack as a detail or the boxes on the roof. What do you find particularly special about it yourself?

 Tip 6: The background

Sure you spend a lot of time on the road in your van, but you can also find yourself often in a forest or by the sea. Find a nice background for your photos, but nothing too intrusive, because your camper should be the focus of the photo. Be creative in your choice of background and get ideas from others.

Camper in focus

Once you have found a suitable background for your photo, try not to let it be the focus of the picture. You can do this, for example, by blurring the background a bit and keeping the foreground – your beloved camper – in focus. You’ll be surprised how great your camper looks as a model.

Tip 7: Clean but not sterile

Sure, a photo of your camper filthy from top to bottom after a wild adventure can look really cool, no doubt. But to show off your camper in the best light, you should make sure that it is clean. Naturally this also applies when you take pictures of the interior. Only then can it shine in all its glory.

Tip 8: The interior

Your camper is not only nice to look at from the outside. The interior is just as interesting and different for each camper. If you live in your camper even more so, as you develop individual touches over time that make your camper unique. This should be captured. Take your time and look at the inside of your camper from different corners. What details are interesting, or what do you find exciting about other campers, for example?

Tip 9: Pay attention to the light

Whether you take pictures from the inside or outside, always pay attention to the light. There is nothing worse than a beautiful photo of a camper that is much too dark, or where details disappear because the picture was not illuminated or photographed in the correct format. There are several options here: Use the sun (even the sunset) to put your camper in the perfect light, but also pay attention to the angle of incidence. If you don’t do this, you can quickly have disrupting shadows in the picture. Another possibility is flashlights or lamps, which you can use to illuminate details. But be careful: the light of the flashlight can often be too bright.

Tip 10: Night shots

Taking a photo in the dark is not easy. First, you need a good camera that is capable of taking long exposures. If that’s the case, then use special features to really show off your camper. For example, you can turn on the lights, or add the interior light as an effect. This way you can take creative pictures that present your camper in an interesting way. 

Tip 11: Photo quality

Very important: make sure that the pictures you take have a high resolution (min. 1024 px) because there is nothing worse than having a beautiful picture that is pixelated. Another important tool to get the perfect shot of your camper is a tripod. It allows you to banish the last little wobbles from the picture and is indispensable especially for night pictures.

I hope these 11 tips were helpful for you and allow your camper to appear in new splendor. All that’s missing now is your camper profile. You can find out how much you can earn and how to create a profile here.

Now have fun experimenting!

By Marcus Breitfeld