What four photographs of a reel have to show.

The tag first, square on, filling the frame, with the whole card visible including its edges. Then the jacket print: get close, keep the print parallel to the frame and take a second frame if it wraps around the circumference. Third, the cut end, straight on, so the conductor and the insulation layers are both visible. Fourth, a wide shot.

The wide shot answers what the close-ups cannot: how big the reel is, whether it stands on a rack or on the ground, whether it is banded, what is stacked on top of it and whether a forklift can reach it. Stand back far enough to include the floor and something of a known size.

Daylight is best and direct sun is worst, because it blows out the tag and drops the print into shadow. Overcast light, or the shade of a building, gives an even image. Indoors, turn the flash off and use the site lighting, or hold a torch low and to one side so the print casts a small shadow and becomes legible.

Put something of known size in the frame for the cut end and the wide shot: a tape measure, a hand, a boot. It lets a buyer judge conductor size and reel diameter without asking. Focus on the print itself rather than the cable as a whole, and take three frames where one would do.

Some things do not belong in a photograph sent for review, even when they sit directly in front of the lens and moving the reel to avoid them would mean clearing half a bay. The frame is read by someone who has never stood in that building, and everything in it becomes part of the description.

A picture that gives away a customer, a security arrangement or a live panel costs more than it explains. Move the reel onto open floor, or frame it tightly enough that the background is a wall rather than the switchroom it came out of, and the photograph will still answer the question it was taken for.

• Nothing that identifies a customer, a drawing number or a security arrangement. Crop it or cover it before sending.
• No cable inside a live switchboard, and nothing shot through an open panel that is still energised.
• No filtered or edited images, since brightness and contrast adjustments distort the jacket colour that helps identify the metal.
• No single reel photographed twenty times. Four good frames beat twenty near-identical ones.
• No faces or badges without the person's agreement, which is simpler than editing them out afterwards.

Name or number the photographs to match the manifest lines: reel one tag, reel one print, reel one cut, reel one wide, then reel two. A buyer reading line three should find image three without scrolling through a gallery of unnamed files, which is where most good intentions fall apart.

Where a reel has a defect, photograph it deliberately and say what it is. A crushed outer wrap, a water-stained end or a chewed jacket shown plainly is a normal finding; the same defect discovered at pickup is a reason to reopen terms on a lot that had already been agreed.

If a tag cannot be read in a photograph, it cannot be read in a review. Wipe it, shade it, and take the frame again before the list goes out.