The white garage door argument has been made many times. I agree that it gets played too hard, too often and should be a general rule of thumb. Most often i find that a white garage door OR solid background is not NEEDED, but HELPFUL for a bike that are on the fence of being hot or not. If a bike is already on the fence of being hot (edging more along the sides of being a NOT) and has a poor background, it can send it over the edge negatively. Where that same bike may show off more of its qualities with a plain back drop.
Arguably, a bike that is hot by majority can do well regardless of having a solid or busy backdrop as long as it is shot well. Perfect examples below. What I'm saying is some bikes need a solid color backdrop to help push it into the hot zone. Some are hot regardless. To me, it comes down to how it is shot.
This includes:
Lighting
Staging (the small things like valve stems aren't necassary, though I enjoy seeing those details)
Angle of the photo
Background not overpowering the bike which should be the main focus of the shot.
Originally Posted by
ucd2016