Writing about the work

A capstone needs more writing than most students expect. The exhibition needs a title, a project text and labels; the book needs a text and captions; the portfolio and website need a statement and a short biography; every image needs a caption and alt text; and the defence, grant applications and press outreach all draw on the same material. Writing is assessed separately in this course because it is how most people first meet your work: a jury reads the statement before looking, a visitor reads the wall text before walking in, and a screen-reader user meets the image through its description. PHOT-401 lesson 11 covered writing artist statements and PHOT-230 lesson 11 and PHOT-320 lesson 8 covered captions and accuracy; this lesson assembles the full set of texts a capstone needs and the process for writing them well.

The texts a capstone needs

Different texts serve different readers and lengths. Writing them as a set, from the same core description, keeps them consistent; writing each from scratch at the last minute produces contradictions that reviewers notice.

Start with a core description

Before drafting any public text, write a 50-word core description in plain language that says what the work is, where and when it was made, how, and why. Test it by reading it aloud to someone who does not know the project and asking them to tell it back. If they cannot, simplify. Every other text expands, shortens or adapts this description; when you change the project's emphasis, change the core first.

Amara's core description read: "Night Shift is a series of portraits and empty workplaces made between midnight and dawn with bakers, cleaners, transit mechanics, a radio host and taxi drivers in one city in 2026. Each worker chose where to stand. The empty rooms show the traces of work that most of the city never sees."

The artist statement

The artist statement explains the work to professional readers: juries, curators, editors and reviewers. It should say what the work is, how it was made, what questions it pursues and how it relates to your wider practice. Use the first person and the present tense, plain language and specific details. Avoid both modesty that undersells ("I just like taking pictures of people") and inflated theory that the images do not support. A good test is whether every sentence could only be about this project; a sentence that could describe any project should go.

Captions and labels

Captions in a documentary capstone carry facts: who, what, where and when. They should be accurate, checked against field notes and, where possible, approved by the people in them. Use names only with permission and spell them correctly; describe people as they would describe themselves; and avoid adjectives that tell the viewer what to feel. Extended captions can include a short quotation from the subject, which adds a second voice to the work. Amara asked each subject to read their caption before the exhibition, and two of them asked for changes to job titles, which she made.

Exhibition labels follow a standard pattern in galleries: title, date, medium and dimensions, sometimes followed by an edition statement and a short caption. Exact formats vary by institution, so follow the gallery's house style if it has one. PHOT-430 lesson 11 discusses label legibility, type size and placement.

Alt text and accessibility

Alt text is a short text alternative to an image, read aloud by screen readers to people who are blind or have low vision and shown when an image fails to load. Web accessibility standards, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), require a text alternative for meaningful images. Good alt text describes what is important in the image in its context, in one or two sentences, without starting with "image of"; it does not repeat the caption word for word. For complex images, or where the visual content is the point, a longer image description can sit in the page text or behind a link. Many organizations recommend keeping alt text concise, often under about 150 characters, with longer descriptions elsewhere.

In Canada, Ontario's accessibility regulations under the AODA require large organizations' websites to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, which includes text alternatives, and the Accessible Canada Act applies to federally regulated organizations. Your portfolio site may not be legally required to comply, but the school's site and any gallery or arts council site that publishes your work may be, and juries increasingly expect accessible submissions.

Readability and plain language

Public texts should be readable by a general adult audience. Plain language guidelines recommend short sentences, common words, active verbs and one idea per paragraph. Readability formulas, such as the Flesch reading ease score, estimate difficulty from sentence length and syllables per word. They are crude and ignore meaning, but they flag texts that are likely to be hard going. BUS-120 lesson 2 discusses plain language in professional writing more generally.

import re
def syllables(word):
    w = word.lower().strip('.,;:!?"')
    groups = re.findall(r'[aeiouy]+', w)
    n = len(groups) - (1 if w.endswith('e') and len(groups) > 1 else 0)
    return max(1, n)
def flesch(text):
    sentences = max(1, len(re.findall(r'[.!?]', text)))
    words = text.split()
    syl = sum(syllables(w) for w in words)
    return 206.835 - 1.015 * len(words) / sentences - 84.6 * syl / len(words), len(words) / sentences
draft = ('This series interrogates the invisibility of nocturnal work through a dialectical '
         'juxtaposition of portraiture and architectural emptiness, foregrounding precarity.')
plain = ('I photographed people who work at night. Each worker chose where to stand. '
         'The empty rooms show the traces of work that most of the city never sees.')
for name, t in [('draft', draft), ('plain', plain)]:
    score, wps = flesch(t)
    print(f'{name}: reading ease {score:.0f}, words per sentence {wps:.1f}')

draft: reading ease -44, words per sentence 19.0
plain: reading ease 89, words per sentence 9.3

The inflated draft scores far below zero, which signals text that general readers will struggle with; the plain version scores in the easy range. Use a score like this as a prompt to reread, not as a target in itself: a text can score well and still say nothing.

Language and translation

Consider which languages your audience reads. A bilingual or multilingual community may expect texts in more than one language, and some venues have legal or policy requirements.

In Canada, federal institutions communicate in English and French, and in Quebec the Charter of the French Language, strengthened by amendments in 2022, generally requires French in public signage and commercial communications, with other languages allowed alongside it under conditions. Galleries in Quebec and federally funded venues may therefore need French texts. Have translations made or checked by a fluent speaker; machine translation of artistic texts often misses tone and specialist terms.

Writing with and about the people in the work

Representation does not end at the shutter. The words around an image shape how viewers see the people in it. Use people's own words where you can, ask how they want to be named and described, avoid terms they would find demeaning, and do not speak for them about experiences you did not share. Where subjects reviewed images under an agreement, let them review captions too. If someone asks not to be named, use a role or no name, and check that other details do not identify them indirectly.

The biography and professional copy

The biography is a short third-person text for programmes, websites and press: name, where you are based, what you do, key education and exhibitions, and one sentence on your current work. Keep a 50-word and a 100-word version. Social and press copy adapts the core description to its medium: a hook in the first line, the essential facts (what, where, when, opening hours), a credit and accessibility information. Write these in week 11 or 12 so they are ready for launch; lesson 9 covers the output and lesson 10 the online presence that uses them.

A writing schedule

Draft the core description in week 2 with the proposal, the artist statement at mid-term, captions from week 8 as the edit settles, and the wall text, biography, alt text and press copy in weeks 10 to 12. Leave time for others to read and for subjects to approve captions. The writing deliverable is due in week 12 so that labels can be printed and installed in time.