How to photograph hire equipment so the record settles the argument

A photograph of a machine is evidence of its condition only if there is a matching one from the other end of the hire. That single sentence is the whole method. Everything below is about making the two photographs match well enough that a person who was not there can lay them side by side and see the difference, or see that there is none.

The angles

For a tracked or wheeled machine, seven photographs cover it:

1. Front, square on, whole machine in frame.
2. One side, whole machine, from far enough back to include the tracks or wheels.
3. The other side, the same.
4. Rear, square on.
5. The hour meter or odometer, close enough to read.
6. Tracks or tyres, close enough to see wear and cuts.
7. Any existing damage, close enough to identify it.

For a scissor lift or boom, swap the tracks for the platform and controls. For a power tool, the whole tool, the serial plate, the cutting head or blade, and the cable and plug. The list is different per category; the rule is the same: fixed, named, in order.

The same way, every time

The pair only works if the second photograph was taken from where the first was. Some habits that make that happen:

• Stand where the ground tells you to. Square on to the front means the bucket edge and the tracks are parallel to the frame. Square on to the side means both track ends are visible and the same size.
• Whole machine, then detail. The wide shots first, so the detail shots can be located on them.
• Same distance. If the front photograph at pickup was taken from three metres, the front photograph at return is from three metres. A closer shot makes small damage look larger, and the renter's lawyer will say so.
• Landscape. Machines are wider than they are tall. Turn the phone.
• Do not skip the boring ones. The rear of an undamaged machine is the photograph that will matter most when the rear comes back dented.

Light, weather and the shed

Photographs are taken outside, in whatever weather there is, and that is fine. A few things make the difference between usable and not:

• No flash into a wet panel. Glare hides a scratch. Step to one side.
• Sun behind you, not behind the machine, or the machine is a silhouette.
• Under the shed roof is better than the open yard at midday; even shade shows paint better than hard sun.
• Wipe the lens. Half the unusable photographs in the world are a smudged lens.
• Mud is condition. Do not clean the machine to photograph it; photograph it as it is, then note the mud if it matters.

The mistakes that make a photograph worthless

• No time. A photograph with no way to show when it was taken proves nothing about then. The camera roll has a timestamp; the printout does not. Whatever you use has to print it.
• The wrong side. A return photograph of the left side and a pickup photograph of the right side cannot be compared. Name the angle and take it.
• Taken after the fact. A return inspection done once the machine is back in the yard, between hires, could show damage from either hire. Photograph at the handover, with the renter there.
• A photograph of a form. A phone photograph of the paper condition report is not a photograph of the machine.
• Lost. On a phone that left with the casual, in a shared folder with no reference in the name. The photograph has to be stored under the hire.

Making it the default

The method fails when it depends on remembering. The way to make seven photographs happen at every pickup, from every staff member, on a machine that looks fine, is to make the phone ask for them: name the angle, wait for the shot, name the next, and do not move on until each is taken. That is what DepotProof's camera step does, and why every report it produces has the same seven angles from both ends, each with its time, laid side by side. Start a 14-day trial, or read what a condition report needs to contain if you are building your own.