Attribution in Captions
Crediting a quotation shown inside an image, caption, or graphic.
A caption attribution credits a quotation that appears in visual form — under a photograph, inside a quote card, on a chart, or in a video lower third. The rules are the same as in prose, but the space is smaller, so the credit is compressed.
The working minimum is speaker plus context: name, and either role or occasion. 'Dr Amina Yusuf, WHO briefing, March 2024' fits in one caption line and lets a reader find the source. Publications that separate photo credit from quote credit should keep the two on different lines so the photographer is not mistaken for the speaker.
Because images travel without their articles, a caption quotation is the version most likely to be screenshotted and shared. Whatever the caption says is effectively the permanent record of that quotation.
Common mistake: putting the attribution only in the surrounding article text. Once the image is shared, that text is gone.
“"We prepared for the wrong outbreak." — Dr Amina Yusuf, WHO briefing, 12 March 2024. Photograph: R. Mensah.”
Keep reading the glossary
The credit set below a block quotation, epigraph, or pull quote.
A square, image-based social-media graphic in which a pull-quote is set in large type over a photograph or plain background.
Quoting by circulating an image of text rather than the text itself.
An unnumbered note that credits the origin of a whole chapter, table, epigraph, or image.