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Progress photos from fixed points: a weekly routine

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

At the monthly owner meeting, the owner's representative asks how far the envelope has come since her last visit. You have plenty of photos, but each was taken from wherever someone happened to stand, at a different height and zoom. Laid side by side, they show that work happened, not how much.

A brick apartment building, partly finished and partly wrapped in scaffold sheeting, with a construction hoist on its face.
Photo: Seb Doe on Unsplash

Progress photos compare only when the camera stands in the same place, points the same way and frames the same view; a shift of a few metres changes the view enough to mislead. The cure is a few marked spots and a fixed time to shoot them. Some owners specify it: one public university's standard asks for monthly photos at each payment application's cut-off and a key plan marking each vantage point's location, compass direction and storey. Check your specification's general requirements (Division 01) first.

Set up the points

  1. Choose four to eight points that together show every side of the building you can see, from spots that stay reachable all job: a fence corner, the lane, a stair landing, a neighbouring lot you have written permission to use.
  2. Mark and number each one: a paint dot or stake, a tag on the fence or column, and the same number on a key plan — P1, P2, P3.
  3. Write down how to repeat the shot: direction by compass or gridline, height, main lens at 1x with no zoom, landscape orientation, and what sits at the edges of the frame.
  4. Keep a reference photo from the first week and check it before you shoot, so a fixed edge — a pole, a roofline — lands in the same place.
  5. Shoot at the same time each week, in the same order, by a named person, so the light is similar.
  6. Add interior points as floors close in. When a point is blocked, set a new one, mark it on the key plan and start a new series.
  7. File each week's set by point number and date, and put this week's photo beside last month's in the owner report.

Common mistakes

  • Picking points the building itself will block within a month.
  • Zooming in on some weeks and not on others.
  • Moving a blocked point a few metres without recording it.

Action list

This week

  1. Mark four to eight points on the site plan
  2. Paint or tag each spot and give it a number
  3. Record direction, height, lens and orientation for each
  4. Take and keep a reference photo for every point
  5. Book a weekly time and a named photographer
  6. Show this week beside last month in the owner report

Check your understanding

A crane mast now blocks photo point P3. Why start a new series rather than shoot from a few metres away?

Show the answer
Photos from a new position no longer line up with the old ones, so a reader could mistake a change of angle for a change in the work. A new series, marked on the key plan, keeps each series honest. Record the week one series ended and the next began, so a reader can link the two.

Sources

  1. Section 01 32 33, Photographic Documentation (Guidelines and Design Standards)University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus · Colorado, United States (one public owner's standard, shown as an example of what owners may specify) · accessed

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