Partly, and the split matters more than it sounds.
You supply the facts. We do the writing. That division is not us being unhelpful — it is the only arrangement that produces captions worth reading, and the reason is simple: we were not there.
Where the line sits
| You give us | We turn it into |
|---|---|
| “Goa, June 2023, it rained the whole week” | A caption that sets the scene in eight words |
| “He hates this photo” | A line that makes the reader smile |
| “This is the flat before we had furniture” | Something that lands, without explaining itself |
| Nothing | Something generic, and you will feel it |
What we cannot invent
Names. Dates. Which of two people is which. What was funny about the Tuesday. Whether somebody was furious or delighted in a photograph where they look like both.
A caption is only good because it is specific, and every specific fact is yours. Given nothing, the honest output is competent and hollow — “a day to remember” under a picture of a day nobody now remembers. Avoiding generic caption language →
What we actually need
Far less than people fear. Five or six concrete things carry a whole book:
- A place and roughly when
- A running joke
- Something that went wrong
- One thing somebody said
- Who is missing from the photographs, and why
Write them badly. Send them as a voice note if that is easier. Bullet points in a message are completely fine — nobody is being marked on prose, and the shaping is the part we do.
What one looks like, before and after
A single photograph, to show where the line falls. You send:
Photo 14 — Papa asleep in the car on the way up to Manali, 2019. He still insists he was “just resting his eyes”. Mummy took this to prove otherwise.
What comes back on the proof is something like: Manali, 2019. Resting his eyes.
Every word of that caption came from you — the place, the year, his own phrase. The only work on our side was choosing which three facts to keep and cutting the rest, which is exactly the part people find hard to do to their own memories. The detail about Mummy did not make the caption, but it tells the designer the photograph is a family joke rather than an unflattering picture, and that decides how large it runs.
Getting the facts onto the right photographs
The commonest caption error is not bad writing — it is a true fact under the wrong image. Three ways to prevent it:
Send each fact directly after its photograph. In a WhatsApp thread, a line of text straight under the image it describes is unambiguous.
Or number them. Rename the files 01, 02, 03 before sending, then send a list with matching numbers. It takes ten minutes and removes all guesswork.
Describe the picture, not the file. “The one with the red umbrella” survives a batch being re-sent in a different order. “The fourth one” does not.
If you genuinely cannot write
Two things that work better than trying to sound literary.
Answer questions instead of composing. Tell us who, where, when and what happened. That is not writing, and it is everything a caption needs.
Talk instead of typing. A two-minute voice note describing five photographs produces better captions than an hour of drafting, because people are more specific out loud.
What you can hand over entirely
Structure, length, tone consistency, and making forty captions feel like one voice. Also knowing when a page should have no caption at all, which is a real decision and one most people get wrong by over-labelling. Layout and spreads →
If you would rather write them yourself
Also fine, and some people much prefer it. Send the finished captions and they print as you wrote them — in English, Hindi or Hinglish, spelling and punctuation included. Your wording is not polished or rewritten; it is placed.
Two things make that go smoothly. Keep each caption to a line or two, because a paragraph under a photograph competes with it. And mark any you are unsure of: “rough — tidy this if it reads badly” tells the designer which lines you want help with and which to leave alone. Can you print in Hindi or a regional language? →
Polaroid packs and card decks
The same split applies, at a smaller scale. Every polaroid print carries a photo and a caption, and the caption strip is a few words rather than a sentence — a date, a place, a nickname. A card deck puts a caption on every card, and for a “52 reasons” deck the reasons are the whole gift. Nobody else can write those, so expect to supply all of them yourself; what we do is set them so they sit well on the card. What goes on a photo card →
You see all of it before it prints
Every caption appears in the digital proof, and changing them is included. If a line does not sound like you, say so and it changes — that is what the stage is for.
⚠️ Check names, spellings and dates carefully at that stage. Those are the one class of error nobody forgives, and the only one we genuinely cannot catch for you. The design proof →
Frequently asked
Do I have to write the captions myself? No. You supply the specifics — places, dates, what happened — and they get written and set for you.
What if I am bad at writing? It does not matter. Bullet points or a voice note are enough. Specificity is what a caption needs, not style.
What happens if I send no details at all? The book gets laid out well and the captions stay generic, which is the commonest reason a photo gift feels hollow.
How much do you need from me? Five or six concrete things is enough for a whole book. A place, a date, a joke, something that went wrong, one thing somebody said.
Can I change the captions after seeing them? Yes, at the proof stage, and it is included. Check every name and date while you are there.
Part of our questions people ask before ordering. See also: how to write a caption that lands, who actually designs the book and what to put in a photo magazine.
Send us five specifics: Photo magazines from ₹499 · All 12 keepsakes