Appearance
Describe photograph collections at the level the material and your time actually justify: arrange the images intellectually first, write group-level descriptions for most of the collection, and reserve item-level records for photographs with genuine research, exhibition, or evidential value. The single most common failure is item-listing an entire deposit, exhausting the budget on captions, and leaving the arrangement undocumented. Get the structure and the standard fields right, and the collection becomes findable even if half the images are never individually catalogued.
How do you decide the level of description for a photo collection?
Photographs come into an archive in two broad shapes: as a discrete photographic collection (a photographer's studio output, a postcard album) or embedded inside a wider fonds (a family's letters with loose snapshots). Treat them the same way you treat any archival material — respect provenance and original order, then describe top-down.
A practical rule of thumb for staffing:
| Material | Default level | Item-level only when |
|---|---|---|
| Studio negatives, bulk | Series / file | A negative is requested or published |
| Personal snapshots in a fonds | File (by envelope/album) | Image is exhibition-grade |
| Glass plates, named sitters | File, with item index | Sitter is identifiable and notable |
| Press prints with captions | File | Caption carries unique evidence |
Item-level description averages 10–20 minutes per good record once you include identification, rights, and a controlled subject term. At that rate a 5,000-image deposit is roughly a full staff-year — almost never the right spend.
Which fields belong in a photograph description?
Beyond the standard ISAD(G)/DACS spine (reference code, title, dates, extent, scope and content), photographs need a handful of medium-specific elements:
- Photographic process — albumen, gelatin silver, cyanotype, colour transparency.
- Dimensions — image and mount separately if they differ.
- Polarity / form — print, negative, transparency, contact sheet.
- Captions and inscriptions — transcribed verbatim from recto and verso.
- Named entities — sitters, photographer, studio, location.
text
Reference: GB-0042/PH/3/17
Title: [Quayside at low tide, with three figures mending nets]
Date: [c.1908]
Extent: 1 photograph: gelatin silver print, 12 x 17 cm
Process: Gelatin silver print
Inscription (verso): "Whitby — Aug 1908. J.R.B."
Note: Title supplied from depicted scene; photographer unidentified.Square brackets around the title signal it is supplied, not transcribed. Anything you lift from the object goes in quotation marks in its own note, so a reader can always separate evidence from interpretation.
How do you keep dating honest for undated photographs?
Most loose photographs carry no date. Resist guessing a year. Use the conventions your standard provides: [c.1908] for a circa estimate, [1905x1912] for a range, [19th century] for a wide bracket. Date by evidence — process (cyanotypes cluster pre-1920s), card-mount style, costume, vehicle registrations, or a studio's known operating dates from a trade directory. Record the reasoning in a note: "Dated from studio imprint; Hartley & Sons traded at this address 1898–1911."
How should subjects and places be indexed?
Free-text scope notes are searchable but inconsistent. Add controlled access points so a researcher finds every harbour scene, not just the ones you happened to call "harbour". Use:
- Getty AAT for object and process terms.
- TGM (Thesaurus for Graphic Materials) for subjects of visual material.
- A gazetteer (GeoNames, or a national one) for places, with coordinates if you can.
Index the place even when the title is supplied — geographic access is the highest-value index for historic photographs.
What about rights and the people in the frame?
Rights status is description metadata's poor cousin and the thing that stops publication. Record copyright status, the likely term, and reproduction conditions in dedicated fields, not buried in prose. For photographs of identifiable living people, run a data-protection check before any online thumbnail goes live; depicting someone is processing their personal data in most jurisdictions. A rightsstatements.org URI on each access copy makes downstream reuse unambiguous.
A working checklist
Run every batch through the same gate before it is published:
- Arrangement documented at series and file level.
- Each record has reference, title (bracketed if supplied), date (with convention), extent, process.
- Inscriptions transcribed verbatim and attributed to recto/verso.
- Named sitters verified; "unidentified" used explicitly elsewhere.
- At least one place access point per file.
- Rights status and reproduction conditions recorded.
- Preservation master captured to FADGI; access derivative linked.
Key Takeaways
- Describe top-down: arrange first, group-describe most images, item-describe only what earns it.
- Separate supplied titles (square brackets) from transcribed captions (quoted in a note).
- Record the photographic process and dimensions — they are evidence, not decoration.
- Date by physical and documentary evidence, and write down your reasoning.
- Add controlled subject, process, and place access points so images are findable in bulk.
- Handle rights and the privacy of identifiable people before publishing, not after.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I describe a photograph collection at item or group level?
Default to group or file level for most accessions, then drop to item level only for images with research value, exhibition use, or known sitters. Item-level description for an entire deposit is rarely affordable and seldom justified.
What is the difference between a title I supply and a caption already on the print?
A supplied title is your editorial summary, conventionally given in square brackets in DACS and ISAD(G) practice. A caption transcribed from the verso of the print is evidence and should be quoted verbatim in a separate note so users can tell description from source.
How do I record the format of a photographic process?
Record the process in a physical-characteristics or extent field using controlled terms, for example 'albumen print', 'gelatin silver print', or 'colour transparency, 35mm'. The AAT and the Graphic Materials thesaurus give you the vocabulary.
Do I need to identify everyone in a photograph?
No. Identify named sitters where they are known and verifiable, but never invent identifications. Use 'unidentified' explicitly and note your evidence for any names you do assign, because wrong attributions propagate fast once published.
How should rights and reproduction be handled for photographs?
Record the rights status separately from the description in a conditions-governing-reproduction field, and flag images of identifiable living people for data-protection review before publishing thumbnails online.
What resolution should I capture for description thumbnails?
Capture preservation masters at FADGI 3-star or 4-star, then derive access JPEGs around 1500–3000 px on the long edge for the catalogue. The thumbnail in the description is for finding, not for study.