Importance of proper photo captions

[Warren Toda]

In case you missed this lovely photo caption, you can read about it here.

Sure, it's easy to blame newspaper cutbacks. But that's a cop-out. Simply put, several people failed at their jobs.

Sadly, this isn't a one-off thing. Here in Toronto, the daily papers mangle photo captions every. single. day.

But this is easy to prevent or at least minimize. When you, the photographer, are writing a caption, assume that everyone else down the line (photo editor, page editor, web editor, etc.) is asleep at the keyboard.

Your photo caption must be true and accurate and that includes spelling and grammar. Never assume that someone else will fix your caption. Your caption should make sense even without the photo.

Identify people based on left to right, for example: Jane Doe (left), Jane Doe (second left), Jane Doe (top right), Jane Doe (centre), as the case may be.

Never use: Jane Doe (long hair), Jane Doe (blue hat), Jane Doe (smiling), John Smith (the weird looking guy), etc. Worst case scenario, you can be sued for defamation.

My point is, as newspapers continue to collapse, the photographer should up their game and be as professional as possible. Never assume that the folks back at the paper know what they're doing, at least when it comes to photography.

Although, even if you do the perfect photo caption, there's always the chance that a page editor will mangle it.

Reuters photo guidelines

[Bill Sandford]

Even when you do proper captioning, naming people and identifying them properly, a desker can screw it up.

Back at the Sun, I had a photo of three Toronto councillors poring over documents at a meeting. One of the subjects was given the wrong name. The caption writer figured the photographer was a dummy and had it wrong. I didn't. We had to apologize for the mistake the next day.

You just never know.

Bill Sandford