Three reasons your construction project needs an onsite, specialist photographer

Is this something you do as routine with your projects? In my experience, firms approach site photography in the following ways:

1. Those that are sold on the value of specialist photography and video from the start of a project to completion. 
2. Those that book a generalist photographer ad hoc to do a selection of photos (or perhaps get their site manager to do some snaps on their iPhone)
3. The final group haven’t used a construction photographer before and want advice on how they add value. 

If you’re in group two or three, let me illustrate how photography can be an investment, not a cost – as long as you work with a specialist. Get the right person onboard and you’ll end up with images and video that prove their worth, long after the project is complete.  

So how can onsite photography do this? 

Here are three reasons your project could benefit from photography – I’m sure at least one will resonate with you.

1. Stakeholder support

Keeping your investors and other stakeholders informed and engaged over the course of a project can be particularly challenging for longer-term projects.  In these cases, a picture really can be worth a thousand words. Investor meetings, employee bulletins, and community PR can all be improved with photos showing progression and detail. 

• Visual assets for your marketing, bidding and PR teams

This is the obvious one perhaps, but using your own images, rather than stock photographs can be really powerful. Our photos have been used for exhibition panels, in annual reports, across a whole range of other marketing material and internal documents. Showing your audiences what you’ve done, how you operate and the finished project is much more persuasive than just telling them. We were briefed by Polypipe to capture the installation process on a project. The final portfolio illustrating the various stages could be used for instruction for future projects. 

• Recording the detail of the build for regulatory purposes

Photography can be a useful adjunct to project documentation, particularly where a detailed record is necessary. Images of work that are below ground or within wall cavities help with a belt and braces approach to compliance.  

The great thing about a specialist is that with the right briefing (and an experienced photographer can help you define a brief), you’ll get images that deliver on all of the above – sometimes just from one shoot.

Strong images play an essential part in conveying the success of a project and securing future work, click here to find out more.