How often should I take progress photos?

For most jobs, weekly from fixed viewpoints, plus extra photos at every key stage and before anything is covered up. On fast-moving or high-risk work, daily.

Can site photos be used in a dispute?

Yes, they're among the most common evidence in construction disputes. They carry far more weight when the date and place are reliable and the photo can be shown to be unedited.

How do I stop photos getting lost on the team's phones?

Agree on one camera app and one place to keep the photos. With Timesnap Pro, each phone can back up its captures to Google Drive automatically.

Construction Site Progress Photos: A Simple System

Photos are a site's memory. Taken the right way, they settle arguments about what was done, when, and in what state it was left.

On a building site, photos do a lot of work: they support valuations and payment applications, show work before it's covered up, record defects and snags, prove delays caused by others, and protect you when a client or neighbour disputes something months later. The difference between photos that help and photos that don't is mostly consistency, and dates nobody can question.

What to photograph

Progress, on a schedule: the same views every day or week, so changes are easy to follow.
Work before it's covered up: foundations, drainage, damp-proof courses, insulation, cables and pipes in walls and floors, fire-stopping, reinforcement before a pour.
Deliveries and materials: what arrived, when, and in what condition, with the delivery note.
Problems: defects, damage by others, unsafe conditions, weather stoppages, areas you couldn't get to.
Existing condition: neighbouring buildings, roads, walls and pavements before work starts, a common source of claims.
Handover: every room and area at completion, and each snag once it's fixed.

How to take them so they're useful later

Fix your viewpoints. Mark a few spots and stand in the same place each time: progress photos are only comparable from the same spot and angle.
Wide shot first, then the detail. A close-up of a crack is useless if nobody can tell which wall it's on.
Show where it is. Note the plot, floor and room, and let the camera add the address.
Make the date certain. A phone's clock can be wrong or changed, and dates disappear when photos are sent on WhatsApp. Use a camera that stamps the verified date and time.
Say what it shows. A stamp or caption naming the trade or the job saves hours when someone searches months later.
Keep the originals in one place, organised by date and area, and backed up off the phone.

A system with Timesnap

Timesnap does the hard parts for you. Every photo and video is stamped with the date and time from the internet, never the phone's clock, and the site's address, and gets a code that a client, surveyor or adjudicator can check on timesnap.info, including whether any part of it was edited. Timesnap Pro adds stamp designs for site work, your company logo, a map and the weather on each photo, Google Drive backup and PDF reports.

Take photos with the real time and place on them: get the free Timesnap camera.

Turning photos into reports

For a weekly progress report or a snagging list, put the week's photos into one PDF with Images to PDF (four or six to a page works well), add the project name and dates to every page with Header & footer, and send it as one file. If it's too big for email, use Compress PDF.

Construction site progress photos: a simple system