Stock photographs hurt a small business website because customers recognize them, and the moment they do, your site stops being evidence of your work and becomes decoration.

It is worse than neutral. A site full of polished images of strangers reads as a company with nothing of its own to show, which is the opposite of the thing you were trying to say. People looking for a local trade are trying to work out whether you are real.

Six honest photographs of your own jobs beat sixty perfect images of somebody else. If all you have today is a phone, use the phone. A slightly imperfect picture of your actual work is more persuasive than a flawless picture of work nobody can connect to you.