Progress photography

Before and after. Seven months passed

One of the services I offer to construction companies is that of progress photography.

Whether the images are needed for the design team, the architects, the insurance companies or simply as a record of what is happening on site, progress photography can be invaluable and is something I enjoy doing.

From November 2009 until May 2010 I documented the building work going on at a large supermarket project in Basel. 

My brief was simply to cover as much as the work as possible from as many different angles.

I was lucky enough the be working with a team who knew exactly what they wanted. I took a walk around the building site and we discussed the various viewpoints needed. These viewpoints were then transferred onto a technical drawing of the site.

Thirteen shooting positions

I had the idea to do a time-lapse of the project but this unfortunately not doable. Instead I resolved to use the same focal length for every position on the same camera body at the same height on my Benbo tripod. I also made notes reminding me of where exactly the camera was aiming. Before each shoot, which at the beginning took place every three weeks, I would print out the pictures from the last shoot to help me visually to place the camera.

Although I had thirteen viewpoints, I eventually settled for ten or so towards the end of the project. This was for two reasons. Firstly, new obstacles such as counters or walls would appear where there was previously nothing and secondly some of the viewpoints overlapped and didn't offer anything new.

Images were always mailed to the clients after every shoot together with a Powerpoint presentation. At the end of the project another Powerpoint was made showing all the progress made from the beginning to the end.

For myself, I made a couple of small movies from the still images to show to future clients. Here's the first.

.. and here's the second



Feel free to leave some comments and thanks for reading.