Seeing the wood from the trees. Are we taking too many site photos?

Last week I was discussing the issue of site photos with a contractor. The discussion included the cost (time) of taking so many photos which were probably never viewed, the increasing storage costs and the cost (time) in trying to find suitable photos for bids, publications or to verify events on site for many reasons.

A number of solutions were discussed including the mandatory tagging of photos before being uploaded or saved on to company sites, using open sites such a flickr, or  an emerging approach of embedding photo’s into the site online diary – or blog where they exist.

At the same time Paul Wilkinson @EEPaul was tweeting live from a COMIT event where the same problem was being discussed – the vast number of photos taken across the industry, made all so easy with smart phones, picture storage requirements increasing as the mega pixel cameras on site increase and so on.

Its not surprising then that we will see construction picture applications emerge, one of the first to come to my attention is Geedra (http://www.geedra.com/) which discusses the issues above in their blog – see Construction Photo Management Just Changed

I can foresee that construction companies will baulk at the cost (just under $2000 per annum, with a limited capacity free option).  But given the cost in time on taking unused pictures, server space for unnessary pictures and time in searching, this may actually be saving costs.

We should perhaps understand, like pictures taken and developed on film, there is a real cost of taking so many digital pictures.