Today, March 4th, is National Grammar Day in the USA. However, here in Canada, we don’t got no Grammar Day to write about.
A few days ago, I had reason to review and edit photo captions from a number of photographers. The spelling and grammar were atrocious. The photographers should have been extremely embarrassed that they weren’t smarter than a fifth grader.
All of these photographers work for daily newspapers and they assume that someone else at their newspaper will correct their captions. But after checking some newspaper websites, this was not always the case. A photographer’s poorly written caption was often copied verbatim onto the website.
Every self-employed photographer knows, or should know, that good grammar and proper spelling are essential business tools. Grammar and spelling add to a photographer’s credibility and professionalism.
Hi, Warren.
Coming from a newspaper editing background, I can tell you there are some photographers who are very careful with their captions, checking the spelling of names, etc., before they submit — so a big kudos goes out to them. But, I agree with you that there are some photographers who just don’t flesh out their captions with basic information or double check them for spelling, grammar, etc.
When I regularly edited a section for the NPAC [News Photographers Association of Canada] website, I found myself often surprised that some submissions came in with scant or vague caption information. I’ve often wondered with the regular contests if a photo should be disqualified if caption information isn’t there or is wrong.
You’re right about the need to be credible, especially as papers and websites cut editing staff and get lax on double-checking submitted details due to time constraints, less diligent editors, etc. Not to veer into other territory, but I was pretty aghast with the whole [photographer Paolo] Pellegrin thing when he said that some of the written information submitted with his photos wasn’t meant to be published. These days any written info you submit with a photo should be considered publishable.
Thanks for your comments, Tanya.
For clarification, I added two things to your comment by using italics in square brackets: (i) added the meaning of the acronym “NPAC” and (ii) added Pellegrin’s first name and occupation. For anyone interested, more information on both of these can be found online.
Tanya, you mentioned that, as newspapers continue to cut editing staff, it’s even more important for photographers to be careful with their captions. I can recall two incidents at a Toronto newspaper where page editors just quickly copied and pasted a photographer’s caption and then went to press without any proofing (I’ve removed the real names):
One caption read: “The fat guy is John Smith and the bald guy is his lawyer Bob Brown.”
The other caption was: “Candidate John Doe shoots the shit with some woman with bad hair. Didn’t get her name.”
Needless to say, the paper had to publish apologies.