The most convincing part of a seller's offering, besides the list of features and other goodies, are the pictures that accompany the selling copy. In this day of no-brainer digital cameras there is no excuse for bad pictures. Whenever I come across an item that interests me and the pictures are too dark, too light or too blurry, I get suspicious that the seller is trying to conceal some obvious flaw that he is not telling me about. I admit to falling prey once or twice because the item was something I really wanted and ignored the warning signs.

I take great care in photographing what I am putting up for auction. If there is a blemish somewhere I make sure it is obvious to a potential buyer so there are no hard feelings later on. Very close-up photography takes a steady hand and a good camera. I have found that using a digital camera similar to the old 35mm SLR, something you can hold up to your eye, is better than the digital cameras that you must hold away from your face to see the image. Holding a camera to the eye gives you a much firmer and steadier grip that is necessary for macro (close-up) work. Holding a camera out away from your face with two hands is very unstable and is likely to show up as a fuzzy picture due to camera movement. Many of the latest models of digital cameras have vibration sensors to eliminate that sort of thing.

My photos are taken with a Fuji S3100, not the latest state-of-the-art but it does a great job for close-ups. Many times I will use a Polarizing filter to minimize unwanted reflections off a shiny surface. All in all, it is my firm belief that good pictures are paramount in convincing that potential buyer to bid. Your philosophy, like mine, should be "What you see is what you get."