Photo Journalism 4(1+3)

Lesson 13 : The Caption

The art of caption writing

Writing captions for photographs takes a special skill. Where the editor approaches the work with respect for both words and pictures, caption writing becomes a real art. The good caption writer shows this respect for the medium by attention to detail to get just the proper balance between the photograph and its caption. Good caption writer always write the caption with the photograph, or at least a photocopy of it, in front of them. They start the caption start the caption with one of the five W’s, which one depending on the content of the photograph. They use specific adjectives, not words and they make cutline that interpret what the picture says rather than simply repeating what picture shows.