Pick the moment closest to yours. Each one says what to photograph and who ends up reading the file.
Move-in and move-out, meter readings, the state of the place at handover.
Read more →The snags at handover, and whether the builder put them right.
Read more →A record of your house before the neighbours start digging or building.
Read more →Scratches, mileage and fuel, before and after the trip.
Read more →The condition at handover, and how the parcel looked when it was sent.
Read more →The hotel room or the rented scooter on arrival, and again on the way out.
Read more →A leak from upstairs, cracks in a wall, a dent in the car park.
Read more →Storm, water or a break-in, recorded before you start clearing up.
Read more →Before and after, extra work, and what was under the floor before it was closed up.
Read more →The first capture of what you made, with the date inside it.
Read more →When the files come from your crew, your customers or a contractor you hired.
The list has no end, because every argument about what something was like has the same shape. These are the common ones.
Move-in and move-out, meter readings, the state of the place at handover. The deposit argument is almost always an argument about what a room looked like on a day nobody photographed properly.
Who reads it: The other party, and whoever settles the dispute
The snags at handover, and whether the builder put them right. Every snag photographed on the day, in one file, so the list you send the builder and the photos cannot drift apart.
Who reads it: The builder, the warranty provider, the ombudsman
A record of your house before the neighbours start digging or building. Cracks that were already there and cracks that were not: only a dated record from before the works tells them apart.
Who reads it: The neighbour, the party wall surveyors, the insurer
Scratches, mileage and fuel, before and after the trip. Ten minutes in a car park at the start, against a charge weeks later that you cannot argue with.
Who reads it: The rental company, the platform, the card issuer
The condition at handover, and how the parcel looked when it was sent. It works for both sides: the seller shows what was sent, the buyer shows what arrived.
Who reads it: The other party, the marketplace
The hotel room or the rented scooter on arrival, and again on the way out. Two minutes that you will never think about again unless you need them.
Who reads it: The rental company, the card issuer
A leak from upstairs, cracks in a wall, a dent in the car park. These are the cases where the date is the whole argument.
Who reads it: Neighbours, the building manager, the council, the insurer
Storm, water or a break-in, recorded before you start clearing up. Clearing up is the right thing to do and it destroys the evidence, which is why the photos have to come first.
Who reads it: The insurer and the loss adjuster
Before and after, extra work, and what was under the floor before it was closed up. Hidden work is the clearest case there is: once it is covered, nobody can look again.
Who reads it: The client, the main contractor, the warranty scheme
The first capture of what you made, with the date inside it. Content Credentials were designed for exactly this question.
Who reads it: Whoever disputes it later
Which question it is decides what the file has to carry. Every moment above falls under one of these six.
| The question | What the file has to carry |
|---|---|
| 1. What condition was it in at the time? | A handover, a check-in, a check-out, damage. Needs a time, a place and a series where anything added later shows up. |
| 2. Was this work actually done, and when? | Before and after, hidden work photographed before it is closed up, progress by date. |
| 3. Was this person really here? | A place, a device and a time, with the series itself as the record of a visit. |
| 4. Was it delivered or received? | The time, the place and the condition at handover. |
| 5. What was happening at that moment? | An incident, with the time and place, unchanged since. |
| 6. Who made this, and when? | The origin of the image itself, which a photo with Content Credentials (C2PA) carries inside it. |