Describing your story

Tags

If your photos cannot be found by perspective publishers, they cannot buy or license them.

Think of how buyers might search for your picture. Place yourself in the position of the buyer. What would you type in a search box if you wanted to come across your pictures? If this isn’t possible, upload as normal then get in touch with your regional editor for help. Our Editorial team are here to help you make the most of Demotix and get the most from your efforts.

• It is always best to tag in English
• Think about the context and how image buyers might find your picture
• Describe your images in a methodological way – what is in the picture?
• Be literal with the subjects in your picture but focus on the main event
• Write the singular form of a word, i.e. ‘flood’ and our system will include synonyms ‘floods’ and ‘flooding’
• Do not type the entire title in capitals, but use upper and lower case characters as appropriate

The more tags, the better!

Title

Please ensure the correct spelling, grammar and punctuation are used. Do not type the entire title in capitals, but use upper and lower case characters as appropriate. It is always best to have a title which reflects the facts of the story.

The title should explain what the entire set of pictures is about as concisely and accurately as possible, ie ‘Demonstration in Athens’ tells us nothing, ‘Demonstration against government corruption/human rights violations ’ etc tells the reader a lot more and is far more searchable for a buyer.

Description and Media Summary

A good image rarely sells itself.

When it comes to getting your photo story published, the words you choose are almost as important as the images themselves. Picture, Feature and News Editors need to know what they are looking at. Focus on the factual information.

There are two boxes to describe the story: the Description and the Short Media Summary.

• Description: this is the place to tell YOUR story.Use as much space as you need. The description will be seen next to your story on the Demotix.com community site.

• Media Summary: here you tell THE story. This field should contain full and accurate information, providing a brief description of the content of the image, including any background information that could add value to its retrievability. This is the only text seen by the world's editors. Stick to the facts - this is not the place for your opinions.

• Remember always write the name of a person whose title you give, i.e.“Foreign Secretary of Britain arriving at the Copenhagen Summit”, should be, “Britain’s Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, arriving at the Copenhagen Summit.”

• At the end of the media summary, write the ‘City, Country’ followed by the date in this format – ‘24th January 2011’.

What to include

When describing your photos in the Description and the Short Media Summary, remember to include the 5 'W's.

• Who: the name of the person(s) in the image. When there is more than one person, it is important to give enough information about their positions that they can be identified, e.g. (L), (centre) or (from left to right). Apostrophes often produce inconsistent search results, so should be avoided, (Julio Baptista of Arsenal rather than Arsenal’s Julio Baptista). Do not add names of people who are not in the picture but could be part of the context of the picture.

• What: what is happening in the picture.

• Where: the place and the town or city and country where the picture was taken.

• Why: the relevance of the picture, including any appropriate background information.

• When: the date the picture was taken, (e.g. 20th June 2008). Words such as yesterday, today etc. are misleading and should not be used.

More tips

Special Characters: Avoid using special characters, such as apostrophes, umlauts, accents etc. as this will cause system translation issues and also return poor search results.

Spaces and Carriage Returns: Please ensure there is a space between every word and between sentences-carriage returns are not sufficient.

Examples

http://www.demotix.com/news/233317/sri-lankan-presidential-election-celebrations

• Set title
  ‘Sri Lankan Presidential Election Celebrations’ or ‘Sri Lankans celebrate President Rajapaksa’s victory’
• Media Summary
  “Supporters of the Sri Lanka's People's Alliance celebrate President Mahinda Rajapaksa's re-election in Colombo after he won a second term by defeating former army chief Sarath Fonseka with 57.9 percent of the popular vote. Colombo, Sri Lanka. 29/01/2010. ”

Example 1

Example 2

Copy and paste the ‘media summary’ to the top of your ‘story section’. This means that when we send URL links to clients, they can immediately see what the set is about. They can then go onto reading the story if they want more information and this is where you are free to write your opinions if you want to.

Set your camera to the correct date!

Please also make sure your camera settings are set to the correct date. This avoids the Demotix team having to get back to you if the metadata doesn’t match the date you say you took the pictures on.