Some photo captions disappear from magazines
A trend noticed by Grumpy Editor is omissions of photo captions. Prime offenders are with magazines, especially those in the travel category. But BusinessWeek, in its Feb. 5 issue, sports a number of images without appropriate information, sort of like Aunt Abby's thick picture album sans dates and identification.
The BW issue contains at least 19 illustrations that lack captions. Make it 21 if one counts three-quarter-page art of a man in a business suit riding an oil barrel bronco style, and a strange full-page drawing of an in-flight purple-winged woman, dressed in a gray suit and wearing high heels, encountering turbulence that scatters feathers and contents of her large pill box, all against a yellow and orange background.
Contrary to traditional procedure, 15 color photos in an eight-page "Special Report" cover story on McDonald's all are minus ID. These include close-ups of old and young customers, usual and new food offerings and preparation, plus shots inside and outside a fast-food eatery, presumed to be in Garner, N.C., highlighted in the text.
Maybe the non-captioned art stems from a new look with the recently-redesigned magazine. But readers still want to know what is going on. And folks in photos will be disappointed they are not named.
Will future "modernization" in slick layouts eliminate subheads --- or even headlines? Stay tuned.
I shot that story and all photos were taken in the same Garner, NC McDonald's. It's true that there are no captions but the images are very "tied in" to the actual body of the article. I presume that the editor's felt the images reference to the Garner restaurant was obvious...
KC
Posted by:kelly culpepper | February 02, 2007 at 11:33 AM