Writing On The Back Without Wrecking The Front

The caption is the whole point, but the wrong pen at the wrong pressure will destroy the print it is meant to save.

Two things ruin photographs during labelling. The first is pressure, which embosses the writing through to the image side and shows as a raised ghost across the face. The second is ink that never truly dries, bleeds through the paper over years, or comes from a marker designed for permanence on surfaces rather than for contact with photographic emulsion. Ballpoint is the classic offender for pressure, and heavy solvent markers are the classic offenders for bleed. Adhesive labels are worse again, because the adhesive ages, yellows and eventually cannot be removed without taking the surface with it.

Work on a hard flat surface, write along the outer edge of the reverse rather than the centre, and use a very soft pencil with almost no downward force for older prints. For modern coated papers where pencil will not mark, use a pen sold specifically as archival and safe for photographs, test it on a print you do not care about, and let it dry fully before stacking anything on top. Never write while the photograph is resting on a soft pile. If a print is already curled, brittle or flaking, leave it unmarked, give it its own sleeve, and put the caption on the sleeve instead.

Keep the caption factual and complete. Who, where, roughly when, and who says so. Names should be full names, because in forty years a reader will not know which Margaret you meant. If a photograph needs more than a line, do not cram it: give the image a number, write the number lightly on the back, and keep the long note in a document or a simple list that travels with the box. A caption that outlives its box is no caption at all, so record the connection in both directions.