Photographic Documentation Log Template & Example

Bellwether Commons, 4400 Ravenswood Drive, Columbus, Ohio. Photographs captured 4 March 2026 between 08:45 and 16:20 by the assessor performing the walk-through survey, with a single handheld camera; a folding rule appears in frame for scale where extent is at issue. Means used: handheld at grade and from unit interiors; from a ladder placed at the eave for the residential roof edges and valleys; from the second-storey east window of building 1 for the part of the clubhouse roof that was visible. No roof was walked, no lift or drone was used, and no part of the clubhouse roof other than the area seen from that window appears anywhere in this log. Three images in the log were not captured by the assessor and are identified as such in their captions: photographs 309 and 310 are screen captures of publicly available aerial imagery of the property, dated April 2025 by its publisher, included to show the northern parking area in a snow-free condition; photograph 311 was supplied by the property manager and shows a ceiling stain in unit 3-204 she states was photographed in January 2026, a date this report has not verified. Photographs in log: 305, numbered within the range 001 to 312. Seven numbers in that range were retired in review and are listed below.

Photographs are numbered sequentially in capture order, from 001, with no building or area prefix; location is carried in the index and the caption rather than in the number. Numbers are fixed as of the issue date of this report. Where an image was discarded in review, its number was retired rather than reassigned, so the sequence contains deliberate gaps at 038, 039, 112, 190, 191, 192 and 266 — seven numbers, all of them discards listed in the Gaps, Rejects and Omissions section below with the reason for each. That is why the log contains 305 photographs while its numbers run to 312, and both figures are stated in the header so a reader does not have to reconcile them. A gap in this log never means a missing photograph that once existed and cannot be found; it means an image that was taken, reviewed, and judged unusable. Photographs 309 through 311 sit at the end of the sequence rather than in capture order because they were not captured on site.

The full index is at Appendix A, one row per photograph, carrying number, location, element or system, subject, direction of view and reference. Its distribution, by block: 001-034 site approach, signage, drive aisles and the southern parking area; 035-058 site paving distress, including the alligator-cracked area of the northern drive aisle adjacent to the dumpster enclosure at 041-047; 059-072 concrete walkways, with the displaced joints on the walkway serving buildings 6 through 9 at 061-068; 073-084 site lighting, dumpster enclosures and fencing; 085-096 the pool, deck and enclosure, including the north gate at 093-096; 097-111 the snow-covered northern half of the site, which is a limitation block rather than an observation block; 113-156 residential building elevations, two to six images per building, with the cracked and missing siding panels at buildings 2, 4, 7 and 9 at 119-121, 128-129, 138-142 and 149-150 and the exterior receptacles at buildings 4 and 9 at 143-148; 157-181 residential roofs from the ladder and from the ground, including the exposed mat at the building 4 south slope at 164-166 and the lifting valley patches at buildings 3 and 7 at 170-173 and 177-179; 182-189 the clubhouse exterior and the visible third of its low-slope roof; 193-228 the twenty-two exterior stair runs, with the six opened stringer connections at 198-199, 204-206, 213-215 and 221-223; 229-283 unit interiors across the fifteen units observed, two to five images per unit; 284-298 equipment nameplates; 299-306 mechanical and electrical spaces, including the water heater relief valve discharge at building 8 at 300 and both opened unit panels at 301-304; 307-308 clubhouse interior and emergency lighting; 309-311 the three images not captured on site; 312 the leasing office copy of the rent roll as received, photographed for the record of its delivery date.

Four captions, reproduced in full to show the form the rest follow. Photograph 164: "Asphalt shingle roof, building 4, south slope, viewed from ladder at eave, camera facing north and upslope. Granule loss across the slope in view; underlying mat visible at three locations within the area in frame, one of which is at the centre of the image. Adjacent slopes and the ridge are not in frame; the north slopes of this building are shown at 167 and 168." Photograph 061: "Concrete walkway serving buildings 6 through 9, approximately 40 feet north of the building 6 entry, camera facing north. Vertical displacement at the transverse joint in the foreground, folding rule in frame reading 7/8 inch at the high side. One of fourteen displaced joints counted along this walkway; the count is from the field survey, not from this image." Photograph 213: "Exterior stair, building 8, east run, stringer-to-landing connection at the base of the run, camera facing east. Decayed wood at the stringer end, visible through trim already detached before this visit; no trim was removed. The movement of this stair under load, recorded in the field notes and carried on the immediate repairs schedule, is not shown by this or any other image in this log." Photograph 301: "Unit panel, unit 1-101, dead front removed by the maintenance manager, camera facing the panel interior. Manufacturer label painted over and illegible; breaker handles carry no legible maker's mark. This image documents that the panel could not be identified, not what the panel is."

No site plan was provided by the owner or the property manager, and none was available from the leasing office; the request is listed among the documents requested and not provided in the limitations statement. In its place, camera positions for the site, paving, walkway and limitation photographs are marked and numbered on a screen capture of publicly available aerial imagery of the property, dated April 2025 by its publisher, reproduced at Appendix B with that date stated on the sheet itself. Building positions on that sheet are labelled with the numbers the property itself uses on its building signage and in its rent roll, 1 through 11 plus the clubhouse, rather than with numbers assigned by this report. Within buildings, location is given by elevation using compass direction, by floor, and by the unit numbers in the rent roll. Interior photographs are located by unit number and room. No camera position is marked for the clubhouse roof photographs at 186 through 189: the camera position for all four is the second-storey east window of building 1, stated in each caption, and marking it on a plan would suggest a vantage point on the roof itself.

Each of the eight items on the immediate repairs schedule is cross-referenced here, in the schedule's own numbering, with the photographs documenting it and a statement of whether the images show the full extent or one instance of a counted total. Item 1, exterior stair stringer and tread decay at buildings 2, 5, 8 and 11: photographs 198-199, 204-206, 213-215, 221-223 — six opened connections at four buildings, each photographed, and the images show the full extent of what was opened rather than the full extent of the condition, because two further runs with the same staining at the stringer base were not opened and are carried on the schedule as an assumption. Item 2, roof valley patch failure at buildings 3 and 7: photographs 170-173 and 177-179, showing all four valleys, full extent. Item 3, clubhouse emergency lighting: photographs 307 and 308, showing two of the three fixtures that failed the push-to-test check — see the Gaps section, this one is not resolved. Item 4, walkway trip hazards: photographs 061-068, eight of fourteen counted locations, each caption naming it as one instance of a counted total. Item 5, absent ground-fault protection at exterior receptacles, buildings 4 and 9: photographs 143-148, all six receptacles, full extent, with the branch wiring at each opening in frame and identified in the caption as copper. Item 6, pool enclosure north gate hardware: photographs 093-096, including two images of the gate at rest in the open position, full extent. Item 7, water heater relief valve discharge, building 8 mechanical closet: photograph 300, full extent. Item 8, inoperative site lighting: photographs 077-080, four of nine fixtures counted during the evening drive-through, captions naming the count. Carried on the schedules with no photograph: nothing. Reported as an open matter with no photograph of the matter itself: the unit panel identification, where photographs 301 through 304 document only that the labels are illegible.

Twenty-two photographs in this log exist to record what could not be observed, each cross-referenced to the limitation it documents. Photographs 097-111 show the snow remaining on the northern half of the site: the northern parking area under its remaining cover, the uncleared walkways serving buildings 9 through 11, and the landscaped and drainage areas north of the clubhouse, with the ploughed drive aisles in frame at 099 and 104 for the contrast. Photographs 186-189 show the roughly one third of the clubhouse low-slope roof visible from the building 1 window, framed deliberately wide so that the extent of what was and was not visible is itself the subject; the caption on 186 states that the remainder was not observed by any means. Photograph 232 shows the closed door of unit 5-103, where the resident declined access, with the unit number legible. Photographs 309 and 310, the April 2025 aerial captures, are included here rather than among the observations because their function is to show the northern parking area in a condition this visit could not observe; both captions carry the publisher's date and the statement that the imagery predates the visit by roughly a year and establishes nothing about present condition. The paving line in the reserve schedule relies on the observed ploughed surfaces and on the maintenance manager's account of the covered area, not on these two images.

Seven images were discarded in review and their numbers retired: 038 and 039, both of the northern drive aisle cracking, underexposed in low sun to the point where the crack pattern could not be read; 112, a mis-fire while the camera was being carried; 190 through 192, three attempts at the clubhouse parapet from the building 1 window, all three too soft at that distance to show the flashing condition; and 266, a unit bathroom frame obscured by a shower curtain. Each subject other than 190-192 is covered by another photograph in the log. The clubhouse parapet is not: no usable image of it exists, and the narrative says so rather than relying on the field note alone. Two further gaps are material, and neither is resolved at issue. First, immediate repairs item 1: the stair runs are photographed and the decay at the opened connections is photographed, but the condition that put the item on the immediate schedule is the movement of the building 8 east run under load, and no photograph in this log shows movement. The images support the decay, not the urgency, and a reader who treats them as support for the urgency will be disappointed; a short video, or a photograph with a fixed reference under loaded and unloaded conditions, would have recorded it and was not taken. Second, immediate repairs item 3: three clubhouse emergency fixtures failed the push-to-test check, and the two photographs taken at the time cannot be matched to three fixtures. Photograph 307 shows a fixture above the corridor door and 308 shows one in the fitness room; the third was recorded in the field notes as "rear corridor" and neither image frames it, nor is there any image of the rear corridor ceiling. The field notes are the only record that the third fixture exists. Both gaps would be closed by one return visit of under an hour, and the report recommends it rather than implying the photographs cover what they do not.

Original camera files are retained unaltered for the period set in the engagement with Northbank Capital and are available to the client on request. The images reproduced in the report were cropped and, in four cases, rotated; four were lightened. No image was otherwise processed, and none was composited. Where an arrow, outline or label has been added to an image — twenty-one images in this log carry one — the caption identifies the annotation as added by the assessor, and each annotated image is reproduced alongside the unannotated original at Appendix C so a reader can see what was photographed and what was drawn. Photographs 309 and 310 are third-party aerial captures reproduced for the limited purpose stated in their captions, and are not the assessor's work.