How to Write a Photo Caption

A very long post on a very simple subject.

Every photographer thinks they know how to write a photo caption. Yet many photographers either don’t caption their pictures or they do it very poorly.

Two days ago, I edited 170 editorial photos from a couple dozen photographers to prepare the images for a slideshow. The slideshow will display each picture’s caption.

Many of the captions had spelling and grammar errors, broken or incoherent sentences, factual errors, no names, no locations and/or no dates. All of these captions were written by professional photographers.

Why caption your photos

(While captions should be added to all image files, this blog post applies mostly to corporate and editorial photography.)

A caption describes the Who, What, Where, When and sometimes also the Why and How of your pictures. Without a proper caption, will you or anyone else remember the factual details of your pictures next week, next year or next decade?

Captions should be embedded in the photo’s IPTC data (EXIF data) and not put in separate file or on piece of paper. Embedded information always stays with the image. Sadly some web sites and social media services remove this EXIF data.

For news photographers, a photo without a caption is only half a picture. If you shoot for newspapers and magazines, a proper caption is essential.

Photos used by corporate customers for their public relations and other media handouts need a good caption. You can’t rely on a customer-supplied press release or any emailed information to provide caption information.

Some publishers will use your caption only as a starting point for their caption. But some, especially online, will use your caption verbatim so your facts, spelling and grammar are important.

A proper caption makes your images more searchable and thus more valuable. If a customer asks for pictures of Betty Brown from many years ago, you should be able to search thousands of your images in a minute to find all your photos of Betty Brown.

General Guidelines

Many news organizations, (and here and also here), and even some government agencies have their own comprehensive “style guide” which includes not only how they prefer to have captions written but also many other things you’ve probably never thought about.

In no particular order, here are some basic guidelines:

• Spelling and grammar are important. Never assume that someone else will spell check, grammar check or even fact check your captions.

If, for example, you incorrectly spell someone’s name, that spelling mistake may prevent you from ever finding that photo in a search. Plus, every time the image is used, that spelling mistake might be perpetuated.

• Never assume that your audience will automatically know what’s going on in your pictures.

• Don’t abbreviate the names of cities, provinces, states or countries. Not everyone knows these abbreviations. Exceptions might be USA, US, UK. Abbreviations are also difficult to search.

• If you use an acronym, be sure to spell it out the first time. Multiple businesses and organizations sometimes use the same acronyms.

Depending on the context, some acronyms can be used on their own. For example, in pro sports photography, the league acronym is often used on its own. A Toronto Maple Leafs hockey photo caption could use only “NHL”, a Raptors basketball picture could use only “NBA”, a Blue Jays caption only “MLB”, a soccer caption only “FIFA”, etc. Although national sports acronyms, like NHL, NBA and MLB, are often spelled out for international audiences.

• There is rarely a need to use someone’s age in a caption unless it’s relevant to the story.

Gold medal winner Mary Brown, 95 years old, is the oldest person to win the national skateboarding championship. Bob Smith won the silver medal and Nancy Doe won the bronze medal.

Five-year-old Tucker Smith plays piano in front of his classmates in Toronto, Canada, 20 September 2018. Smith is the youngest student enrolled at XYZ Music College.

• There is no need to use Mr. , Mrs. , Miss or Ms.

A married couple that shares a surname can be referred to as, “John Smith and his wife Mary.” This implies that Mary has the same surname as John. If you write only, “John and Mary Smith”, the two could be siblings, cousins, any other type of relative or they could even be two strangers with the same surname.

If a married couple does not share a surname then you write, “Jane Brown and her husband Bill Smith.”

Similarly you write, “Mary Brown and her sister Susan” if the two have the same surname. For siblings with different surnames, you could write, “Mary Brown and her sister Susan Smith.”

Never assume that family members or spouses share a surname. Always politely ask for their surnames.

• Don’t use slang words or trendy phrases unless the story requires it. Not everyone will know what they mean and they may be forgotten in a few years. Be careful when using jargon, abbreviations and colloquialisms because people may have no idea what you’re talking about.

Can you understand any of this:

OPP officers help a car driver after a 10-38 on the 401 east of the basketweave in Toronto, 20 September 2018. The driver of the truck was transported Code 6.

• Don’t use only nicknames or stage names. Use the person’s full name and, if necessary, include their nickname or stage name. Exceptions might include people such as Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Bono, Beyoncé, etc. But even these monikers will fade from memory in one or two generations. Using a person’s real name makes your captions future-proof.

• Don’t start a sentence with a number. Spell it out. If you can’t do that then change your sentence. Numbers under ten should be spelled out.

Not:   2010 was the last year they made the Chrysler PT Cruiser.

Try:   The Chrysler PT Cruiser was last made in 2010.

Not:   40 children wait outside the school library.

Try:   Forty children wait outside the school library.

Or:   A group of 40 school children wait outside the school library.

John Smith completed the 50-kilometre race in three hours.

• For numbers in the millions and higher, it’s easier to write and easier to read if you spell it out. For example, “Jane Doe won $25 million in the Big Cheese Lottery,” rather than, “Jane Doe won $25,000,000.00 in the Big Cheese Lottery.”

• Decades do not have an apostrophe. Use 1990s, not 1990’s and not ’90s.

• Percentages should also be written to make it easier to read. For example, “The federal government estimates that 70 per cent of adults watch too much television.” In the US, it’s common to use “percent.”

• If a picture is a composite such as a multi-image panorama, HDR, focus stack, etc., this should be disclosed in the caption.

The Five W’s

A caption describes the Who, What, Where, When and sometimes Why and How, of a picture. The first four are ideally all in the first sentence. A second, third or even fourth sentence might be added to explain Why and maybe also How. But remember that you’re writing a caption not a book.

Who is the main subject?

What is that subject doing or what is going on?

Where is this taking place?

When is this taking place?

Why is this important or why is this taking place?

Optional: How did this happen?

The first sentence of a caption is usually written in present tense because it describes the action taking place right before your eyes (Who, What, Where, When). Subsequent sentences might be past, present or future tense depending on the situation.

Just The Facts

• Captions should be factual with no editorializing on your part. No personal critiques, comments or bias. Just the facts, the real facts and not your assumption of what the facts might be.

• Never make unsubstantiated claims. Always accurately attribute any claim to proper sources. This is very important when captioning photos that pertain to police arrests, court cases and some business stories.

• Not:   “John Smith has grown the world’s largest pumpkin.”

Instead:   “According to Guinness World Records, John Smith has grown the world’s largest pumpkin.”

• Never:   “John Doe is arrested by police after he robbed a bank.”

Try:   “A man is arrested by police. Toronto police later charged John Doe with bank robbery.”

• Don’t state the obvious. If your photo shows two people shaking hands, there’s no reason to say they’re shaking hands.

Time and Date

• Be sure the clock (date and time) in your camera is properly set. It’s very confusing if the date in your written caption is different than the camera’s EXIF date. Software often pulls the date and time from your EXIF data so an accurate clock is important.

• There’s no need to state the day of week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) unless there’s a specific reason to do so.

• What date is 7/10/2018? Is that July 10, 2018 or October 7, 2018?

It’s common in many countries to write the date in ascending order (day, month, year). To absolutely avoid any confusion between day and month, spell out the month: 07 October 2018.

• Don’t abbreviate months. Use January not Jan.

• Don’t abbreviate the year. Use 2018 not ’18.

• Don’t use relative dates like yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week, etc. These mean nothing on any day other than the day you wrote the caption.

Not:   Joe Smith brings supplies onto his sailboat docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 18 August 2018. Smith will begin his attempt to sail around the world today.

Try:   Joe Smith brings supplies onto his sailboat docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 18 August 2018. Smith will begin his attempt to sail around the world later in the day.

Not:   Joe Smith brings supplies onto his sailboat docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 18 August 2018. Smith will begin his attempt to sail around the world next week.

Try:   Joe Smith brings supplies onto his sailboat docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 18 August 2018. Smith will begin his attempt to sail around the world on 25 August 2018.

Naming Names

• All relevant people in your picture should be identified by name and, if appropriate, by title.

• (L) or (left), (R) or (right), (C) or (centre). Using single letters makes it easier to do something like: (2-L), (3-R). If you use single letters, use uppercase because l (lowercase L) and 1 are easily confused. Try to be consistent.

• Spell out positions like (top), (bottom), (front), (rear), (front row) rather than using single letters.

• Never assume your audience knows the names of the people in your photo no matter how famous you think they are.

• Never assume your corporate customer knows the names of everyone at their company.

• Don’t identify people by the colour of their clothes, their hairstyle, their age, what they’re holding, etc.

• Captions are easy most of the time but sometimes it can get difficult especially with large groups or when business titles are involved.

Some corporate executives can have a ridiculously long title or a series of titles. But these executives might have a shorter title that will suffice. There’s no need to use quote marks around employee titles or company names.

Newspapers and magazines rarely care about long titles. But corporate customers often want the full title included so it can be seen in media handouts and other public relations.

• Large group photos can be difficult to caption. If you have a small number of important people among a larger crowd, you might try to move the important people in front of the others so they stand out more and it’s easier to caption.

• If you don’t know the name of a person in a photo and they can’t be cropped out, such as in a group photo, you must still somehow account for them in your caption. If you have a photo of four people but only three names, people will think you forgot to include that missing name. There also might be confusion as to which name applies to which person.

You don’t need to name people who are incidental to your main subject but only those who are pretty much front and centre and can’t be avoided or cropped off.

Accents

There’s a big difference between resume and résumé, between rose and rosé, and between Beyonce and Beyoncé.

Some non-English words that are commonly used in English have lost their diacritical marks (accents). Such words can be written without accents and still be easily understood. For example: uber, cafe, cliche, debut, a la carte, muesli, Montreal, Quebec, pinata, Zoe, Chloe, Noel and many more.

Some diacritical marks and some non-English characters can cause problems with some software. So you might need to Anglicize some characters such as: Ü, Ä, Ö, ô, ñ, æ, œ, ij, Å, ç, ķ, ß.

Good luck.

Sports Coverage

There’s no need to use apostrophes with team names. Think of the team name as part of the player’s title.

When referring to the president of the Ford Motor Company, you would write, “Ford Motor Company President Jane Johnson” and not “Ford Motor Company’s President Jane Johnson.”

Similarly you can write: Toronto Blue Jays catcher John Doe, Toronto Raptors coach Jim Doe, Miami Heat guard Josh Doe.

In your sports caption, be sure to name the sports league, use full team names and include the name of the sport itself. These make your images more searchable.

Not:

Cavaliers forward Tristan Thompson (L) steals the ball from Raptors forward Calvin Miles in first-quarter action in Toronto, Canada, 11 January 2018.

Instead:

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Tristan Thompson (L) steals the ball from Toronto Raptors forward Calvin Miles in the first quarter of their NBA basketball game in Toronto, Canada, 11 January 2018.

Everything Else

All your image files should have a basic caption of at least Who, What, Where and When. Having your images properly captioned means you can quickly and accurately search your files.

The use of only Keywords, Categories, Supplemental Categories and other tags is not good enough. These are useless to the end user and they’re too vague for you to do a specific search. If you shoot for a stock agency, they may require you to use certain keywords and categories.

Business portraits:

If you shoot a large number of business headshots for a corporate customer and a year later they ask for another copy or additional pictures of, let’s say, Mary Marvel, will you remember who she is? A simple caption can help:

Mary Marvel, Vice President of Communications at XYZ Inc. in Toronto, Canada, 15 October 2018.

Pictures of buildings, office interiors and other simple scenes also need captions. Often a basic caption is all that’s needed.

Some media organizations have specific requirements as to which IPTC or EXIF fields must be completed and how they should be filled out. In all other cases, along with your caption, be sure to add your name, copyright notice and other contact information to the appropriate IPTC or EXIF fields.

And Finally

Captioning photos is much easier than this long post makes it appear:

• Who, What, Where, When and maybe Why or How.

• Be concise.

• Spelling counts.