What the photos your developer sends do not show
They show the parts of the building that photograph well at that stage. What is missing is consistent: services before they are covered, waterproofing details, the areas where work has stopped, and any reference that would let you compare this month with last.
What is systematically absent
- Services in open walls and slabs, the one thing that cannot be checked later.
- Waterproofing at terraces, balconies and roof junctions, where the expensive failures start.
- Areas where nothing has changed since the last set.
- Anything under water, behind a stack of materials, or above a ceiling.
- The wider site, which is where a fall in activity shows first.
Why comparison is impossible
Photographs sent as updates are taken from wherever the person was standing. The angle changes, the light changes, the crop changes. Two sets six weeks apart may show the same room and be uncomparable.
A record made for comparison is taken from repeatable positions, so the difference between two images is the building rather than the photographer. That is the whole difference between an update and a record.
What to ask for, if photographs are all you have
- 01The same views each month, named, rather than a new selection each time.
- 02Wide shots of each elevation, not only close-ups of finished corners.
- 03Photographs of open services before any wall is closed, dated.
- 04The date and time of capture, and who took them.
- 05The areas not photographed this month, and why.
The absence that matters most
Nobody sends a photograph of a room where nothing happened. It is not deception, it is the nature of an update: you send what there is to show. But the room where nothing happened for four months is precisely the information you needed.
Questions on this
Can photographs prove a stage is incomplete?
They can support it. What makes the argument is the contractual definition of the stage next to a dated record of what was and was not built, including what could not be seen.
Should I ask for video instead?
Video has the same selection problem and is harder to compare. A walkthrough recorded along the same route each time is useful; a highlight reel is not.
What about photographs from other buyers?
Useful and unreliable in the same way as any crowd-sourced record: undated, inconsistent, and biased towards whatever alarmed somebody enough to post it.
Read one before you buy one
The specimen shows the whole structure: status, what each payment was meant to buy, the forecast with its range, the photographic record and the limits of what was checked.