Guidelines to proper photo captions

All you need to know about captioning your photographs, but never bothered to ask

You shot that awesome image, but didn’t have time to caption it! Sure, it made the front page, but now it sits in eternal darkness of digital archives with no one able to find it, because the caption is incomplete or the names are misspelled.

As a photographer, I found that the least thrilling part of preparing the pictures for filing to the editors was – captioning it. Only when I started working the desk as an editor and a researcher, I realized how important proper caption is. Whether working on staff in a newspaper, magazine or an agency, or as a freelancer hitting the market all by yourself, same rules apply – the more terms relevant to your picture are included in caption, the more likely a photo researcher or a potential customer will find it. After all, the main purpose is to have a good photograph used more than once, which means it has to be easy to find.
Since all the search goes through the text embedded with the photograph as a caption, IPTC or file info, a standard widely accepted in the English speaking photography market is the AP (Associated Press) captioning standard:

The caption should follow a simple formula. The first sentence describes what the photo shows, as well as when and where it was made. The second sentence gives background or other significant information. The caption should end like this: (Photographer's Name/Newspaper Name).

Student’s guide to AP Style Photo Captions gives a following example and explanation:

Victory signs held high, Peggy Broxterman leaves federal court in Denver, Monday, June 2, 1997, after a jury convicted Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Broxterman’s son was killed in the blast that claimed 168 lives. (Photo/Kevin Moloney)

Your caption MUST answer these questions:
1. WHO is in the picture? Are the names spelled correctly with the correct name on the correct person? Are ages included for minors?
2. WHAT is in the picture? Complete the story.
3. WHEN? The DATE the picture was taken, including the day of the week, day and year must appear in the body of all captions. Your images will be history some day.
4. WHERE was it taken? Be specific. Follow AP style for geographic locations. Use city, state and country.
5. WHY? Explain the circumstances, but avoid hyperbole. Remove as many adjectives as possible from the final caption.
6. Is it specific?
7. Is it easy to read?
8. Is it grammatically correct and written in AP style?
9. Did you check your spelling? Avoid spell checkers. Use a stylebook and a dictionary.

Captions are generally made of two parts, each composed of one or more sentences. The first part, almost always written in present tense, describes the action seen in the photo (see the first complex sentence in the above example). The second part gives context to the image. This part is usually written in past tense (see the second sentence in the example) and describes why the action, situation or content of the picture is important or interesting. NEVER WRITE A CAPTION WITHOUT HAVING THE PICTURE IN FRONT OF YOU!

Using Adobe Photoshop’s File Info, here are captioning guidelines for all IPTC fields:

Description
1. Document Title: either the assignment name or the name of the photo,
2. Description: this is the caption field - it needs to be AP style, completely filled out (5 W's & H), with complete ID's on all subjects within the photo
3. The Caption Writer (“Description Writer”) box should list the initials of the writer.
4. Keywords: any words that might give a basic description of the photo
5. Copyright Status: slide the menu so that it reads copyrighted. With this option it places a copyright symbol © at the top window bar of the photo when the document is opened
6. Copyright Notice: Your Name/Source, © and Year.

Origin
1. Date Created: the date the image was made,
2. City: the city the image was made,
3. State/Province: the state or province the image was made
4. Country: the country the image was made,
5. Credit: you, the photographer
6. Source: institution or publication the image was made for
7. Special Instructions should list things such as, Stand Alone Photo if it is a feature, date of file photo, advance line or outs and limitations (i.e. "INTERNET OUT").