EXIF knows time. It does not know intent.

Every photo already carries timestamps—great for ordering, useless for explaining why you moved a condensate pump. Tags and captions are the human layer that survives forwarding, printing, and that one guy who still uses Outlook 2013.

Lean on EXIF for

Sequence checks, rough “when was this,” sanity that nobody reordered files badly.

Lean on captions/tags for

Room names, trade context, issue vs done, anything you would say out loud to a tired superintendent.

If your evidence strategy is “sort by date and hope,” you will eventually lose a fight to someone who wrote six words on the photo.