How to Write a Caption for a Photo or Illustration

Writing a caption for a photo or an illustration is an important task that needs to be handled well. Luckily, how to write a caption is not that hard a task at all.

If you are a professional news photographer, for example, you already know that most photo and news editors want an excellent caption to accompany the photo as well. Why? Because photo editors are busy people and they may not be that good with words either. Same goes for illustration editors. A ready-to-publish photo caption always enhances the value of an image.

For both photos and illustrations, the rules are simple:

1) Your caption should answer as many of the 5-W questions as possible: What, Who, Where, When, Why (or How).

2) Your caption should only DESCRIBE and not editorialize -- unless of course your editor insists on that specifically. Then you should be able to deliver a "loaded" caption with its own built-in editorial comment as well.

Let's explain both rules separately.

1) Answer the 5-W Questions

And here is a BETTER caption for the same photo:

“Four members of the Fire Company 456 of Brundelberg, Germany are carrying a role-playing crew member on a stretcher during the fire-evacuation medical emergency drill held on October 21, 2009 in Brundelberg to improve the city’s annual rating by the “EU Fire Insurance Rating Board”.

This caption answers all the 5-W Questions:

WHAT: Fire-evacuation medical emergency drill
WHO: Four members of the Fire Company 456
WHERE: Brundelberg, Germany
WHEN: October 21, 2009
WHY/HOW: To improve the city’s annual rating by the “EU Fire Insurance Rating Board”

2) Don’t Editorialize

Here is what an EDITORIALIZING CAPTION would read like, for the same photo:

“Four members of the Fire Company 456 of fascinating Brundelberg, Germany are carrying a role-playing crew member on a stretcher during the magnificent fire-evacuation medical emergency drill held on October 21, 2009 in Brundelberg to improve the city’s amazing annual rating by the “EU Fire Insurance Rating Board”.

ADJECTIVES like “fascinating”, “magnificent”, or “amazing” is a tell-tale sign that you are editorializing the caption since the reader has no way of knowing whether Brundelberg [a fictitious city] is indeed “fascinating”, the drill was “magnificent” or if the city’s annual rating is indeed “amazing.”

If you have concrete facts to substantiate such adjectives, use them by all means. Then you would save yourself from committing the “number one sin of objective reporting”: editorializing.



Here is the IMPROVED and non-editorializing caption, corrected with factual data:

“Four members of the Fire Company 456 of Brundelberg, Germany (a city that won EU’s “Fascinating City Award” 4 times in row) are carrying a role-playing crew member on a stretcher during the fire-evacuation medical emergency drill held on October 21, 2009 in Brundelberg to further improve the city’s 27%-better-than-EU-average annual rating by the “EU Fire Insurance Rating Board”.

Exception to “Don’t Editorialize” Rule

If you are writing for a publication/organization with a strong and public editorial bias, or the editor specifically asks you to insert such a slant, then as a professional photographer you’d be justified to adjust the caption accordingly.

Imagine you submitting a similar “factory fire” photo (also courtesy of Wikipedia) to [the fictitious] World Anti-Smoking Organization’s monthly Magazine “Quit!”:

“The 5-alarm fire that devastated the Corona paint factory 34 km south of Rome on August 2, 2009 due to a carelessly disposed cigarette butt is yet another testimony to the dangers and high-cost of smoking at the workplace.”

The photo itself is of course not a “testimony” but is a photo of a factory fire in progress.

But within the context of the organization’s clear anti-smoking bias it would be permissible to insert such an anti-smoking message with ONE IMPORTANT CONDITION -- the fire should in fact be due to a carelessly disposed cigarette butt. Otherwise you’d be lying and that would be unethical, and in some cases criminal as well.

No matter what you do, do not invent “fictitious facts” when writing a caption, even when you are authorized by the editor to editorialize.

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