Including Useful Information in Your Photo Descriptions

When writing the short summary or including keywords in your photo submission form, think about the types of information that would be useful to a potential customer. In addition, refrain from including information that doesn't add anything to the usefulness of the photo.

Include:

The geographic location in which the photo was taken (Colorado, Moscow, Near the Eiffel Tower)
A description to help the viewer make sense of what he or she sees (antique buttons, homemade lasagna, geese flying south)
Any particulars that will make the photo more useful - species name, cocktail type, dog breed (Scottish Thistle, Martini, Cairn Terrier)

Do Not Include:

Irrelevant information (When I took this photo, I was so happy.)
Information that isn't particular enough (I found this flower in my back yard.)
Information that states the obvious, without going further. (This is a photo of a dog.)

Think about what kind of information will encourage the user to know they are choosing the right image for their website, article, advertisement, or other publication. Let's use the owner of a gardening site for example. This person has an article on wildflowers of Ohio, and he would like to spruce it up with some relevant, meaningful, and illustrative photos.

His choices are:

A photo of a wild orchid, that may or may not be a Lady's Slipper, a rare wildflower that grows in Southern Ohio - the photographer doesn't give the type of flower or the region where this photo was taken.
A photo of a white flower, growing in a shady area that the photographer specifically states is a Trillium that was photographed in John Bryant State Park in Ohio.

The website owner who desires to present accurate information that will respect his readers' desire for accurate information will choose the second photo. The photographer has confirmed that this image is right for an article about Ohio wildflowers.

Remember, just as you write very narrowly focused articles for Constant Content, so are webmasters providing narrowly focused articles for their readers. Therefore, they need photographs that are specific. When the image doesn't speak for itself, the photographer must fill in the details.

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