A Photo Shot List for Receiving an Import Container

When a shipment turns out short or damaged, the photographs are what everybody opens first. A good set settles a question in a minute, and a poor set raises ten new ones. The difference is rarely the camera. It is whether the person taking the pictures followed a sequence that answers three questions for every frame: where is this, when was it taken, and what exactly am I looking at?

The sequence for a container

Take the photographs in the same order every time, so that anybody can follow them.

1. The container from the rear, the whole door end in one frame.
2. The container number and the seal, each in a close-up with the digits legible.
3. The first view, after the doors open and before anything is moved: left, centre and right.
4. The unloading, with a wide frame each time a quarter of the load has come out, to show progress and the order of the cargo.
5. Labels, with a close-up of the carton label on a sample from each pallet or each line.
6. Problems, each one with three frames (see below).
7. The empty container, showing floor, ceiling and both walls, to prove that nothing was left and to record the condition of the box.
8. The cargo at its final place, in wide frames of the staged pallets.

Three frames for every problem

A damaged or doubtful carton needs three pictures, not one.

• Wide: the carton in its position, so the reader sees where it stood.
• Medium: the whole carton, with its label and number.
• Close: the damage itself, with something that shows its size, such as a ruler or a hand.

Put a small numbered tag next to the carton, or hold a sheet with its number, so that the picture can be tied to a line in the report.

Do not stop at the first damaged carton you find, since it may be the worst or the best of its kind. Photograph several of the same sort, so that the report can say whether the damage is repeated.

Settings and habits

• Turn the date and time stamp on, and check the phone's clock before the work begins.
• Use enough light. A cheap lamp is better than a flash, which creates glare on shrink wrap.
• Keep the phone steady and take a second picture if the first is blurred, but do not delete the blurred one until the end of the day.
• Never edit, crop or filter. Keep the original files with their metadata.
• Save the photographs the same day, in folders named by shipment and date.
• Start the album with a sheet showing the container number and the date, so that the whole set is tied to the shipment.

A normal 20-foot container shipment may come to something like 60 to 80 pictures, more if there is damage. That is not many, and every one of them can be pointed to in a report.

A short continuous video of the unloading, filmed from the doorway, is a useful extra. It does not replace photographs, but it shows the order in which things came out and the way the goods were handled.

A conditional example

Photograph 14 is a wide shot of pallet 6 in its place. Photograph 15 shows the carton with the label "KH-2 / 14 of 40". Photograph 16 shows the crushed corner, with a ruler reading 9 cm. In the report: "Pallet 6, carton 14 of 40: crushed corner of about 9 cm, contents not yet opened, photographs 14 to 16." Someone who never visited the site can find the carton, see the size of the damage and match it to the line.

Typical mistakes

• A close-up of the damage with no label or position.
• Photographs sent through a chat application and kept only in compressed form.
• A photograph of the whole pile offered as "proof" of the count.
• No pictures at all of what is in order, so nobody can later show that it was.
• A second person's photographs mixed in with no record of who took what.
• Putting the phone away during the long middle of unloading, which is when most handling damage happens.

In short

The right photographs cost minutes on the day and spare weeks of argument afterwards. CargoChek photographs every remark with a close-up and a wide shot, keeps them in order by package number and remark number, and delivers them to you as an album with the report.