Writing Captions for Photographs: Best Left to Professionals

Here's a blast from the past because I'm on vacation this week:

I was doing the final check on a newsletter before it went to the client for review. A couple of grey boxes marked where photos would be inserted later. I noticed that beneath the placeholders, someone had diligently written captions.

I couldn't find the photos in the job jacket, so I looked around and eventually found them on an art director's desk.

Back in my office I laid the photos out and compared them to the captions. One picture showed some guy pointing at a little handheld device. The caption said, "The team diagrams their winning strategy."

In the next photo, a group of people smiled for the camera. The corresponding caption, first row (L-R) indicated "Delores" was the name of a distinguished-looking gentleman in a green tie. I went over to see our (former) copy director who had written the captions in question:

"What's with these captions?"

"What do you mean?"

"They don't match the pictures."

"Well. I was not given the pictures."

(This is just another example of Why I Dislike Being a Manager)