Photographs a Machine Cannot Generate

What just became cheap

Producing an attractive image of a finished project, a tidy workshop, or a smiling team is now trivial and nearly free.

Which means those images have stopped signalling anything, because anybody can have them.

The photograph that still signals something is the one that could only have been taken by somebody who was there.

So the value of documenting your actual work has gone up rather than down, which is not the intuitive conclusion.

What a real photograph shows that a generated one cannot

• The awkward constraint you worked around.
• The condition you started from.
• The specific property, recognisable locally.
• The middle of the job.
• Weather, mess, and real conditions.
• Your actual people.

The first is the most persuasive and the least photographed. Everybody photographs the finished result and almost nobody photographs the reason it was difficult, which is the thing that demonstrates competence.

Before and during beat after

Which reverses the usual habit.

A finished result is what a generated image is best at, so a gallery of finished results is competing on the ground where the machine is strongest.

A photograph of what it looked like before, or halfway through with the problem visible, cannot be produced by anything that was not there.

It is also more convincing to a customer, who is trying to work out whether you can handle their situation rather than admiring a kitchen.

Take the before shot on every job, which takes four seconds and is the one nobody remembers.

Pair them and the improvement is legible in a way a finished photograph alone never is.

A worked example

A business had a gallery of forty finished projects, all well lit and all of a similar kind.

They started photographing three moments on each job: the state on arrival, one point during, and the finished result.

Within a year they had twenty sets, which they put on pages describing the individual jobs.

Enquiries began referencing specific projects, which had never happened with the gallery.

The before photographs were the ones customers mentioned, because they showed a situation resembling their own.

The change was a habit rather than any equipment or expense.

Local recognisability is an asset

Which is worth using deliberately.

A photograph showing a recognisable local street, a particular kind of house, or a familiar view is anchored in a place.

Somebody in that area recognises it, which is a form of proof no general image carries.

Say where each job was, at least to the neighbourhood, with the customer's permission.

That serves the local search question and the credibility question at once.

Avoid anything identifying a specific address or the occupants unless you have asked.

The habit is the whole thing

Since nobody goes back and photographs a finished job.

Three photographs per job, taken on a phone, takes under a minute of anybody's day.

The failure is always that it depends on remembering, so make it part of an existing routine: arriving, the mid-point check, and locking up.

Have them sent to one place rather than staying on individual phones.

Six months of that is more usable material than most businesses accumulate in a decade.

And the person who took the best one leaves eventually, which is the argument for the shared folder.

Say who took it and when

A small addition that carries weight.

A date and a location on a photograph makes it a record rather than a decoration.

As generated images become more common, dated and located photographs of real work become the distinguishable kind.

That is worth doing now while the habit is easy to establish, rather than retrofitting it later.

Keep the originals with their information intact, in one place, for the same reason.

Do not generate images of your work

Which needs saying plainly.

An image presented as your work that is not your work is a misrepresentation, whatever produced it.

The risk is not detection, it is a customer expecting what they saw.

Illustration and diagrams are a different matter and are legitimate where clearly not photographs.

If you have no photographs of a service, say so and describe it in words rather than illustrating it with something invented.

Get permission once, properly

Since the constraint on publishing this material is usually the customer rather than the photographs.

Ask at the point of quoting rather than afterwards, as a line saying you sometimes photograph work for your website and asking whether that is acceptable.

Almost everybody says yes when asked in advance and a meaningful proportion say no when asked after the fact, which is a difference in framing rather than in willingness.

Note the answer with the job so nobody has to remember, and honour it, including for the ones who declined.

Where the answer is no you can still photograph the work itself without anything identifying the property, which covers most of what these shapes need.

The counter-case

Some businesses have nothing to photograph.

Work inside walls, work that is a service, or work where photography is inappropriate leaves nothing to document, and forcing it produces staged pictures of nothing.

Generated illustration is also genuinely useful for explaining a process, where a diagram helps and no photograph exists.

And a poor photograph of real work can look worse than nothing at all, particularly on a trade where finish is the argument.

Where the lighting is genuinely against you, one good photograph is worth six poor ones and the rest can stay in the folder.

The point is having the material to choose from, which is what the habit produces and what nobody has without it.

Take three per job including the before, put them on pages about specific jobs, and say where and when.

The habit

1. Photograph on arrival.
2. Photograph the difficult part.
3. Photograph the result.
4. Send them to one place.
5. Put sets on job pages.
6. Say where and when.
7. Never present generated work as yours.

Step one is the one nobody does and the one customers respond to, since a photograph of a situation resembling their own is what tells them you can handle it.

Why the usual photographs stopped working is covered in photography that looks like everybody else's.

Frequently asked questions

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