🚀 go-pugleaf

>I say captions should be PRESENT tense,
>publisher says PAST.

There's no rock-solid, no-exceptions answer to that question. It depends.

However, generally speaking, the first sentence of a cutline should
describe in an active way what is happening in the photo as it was taken.
"Mark Lemke tags out a runner in Friday's game," "Chef Roy prepares a
dish in his kitchen," "Eddie Arcaro climbs aboard his favorite horse,"
etc. (A good photo, of course, will show _something_ happening, rather
than just people standing around . . .)

That may be your only sentence. However, if you have a second sentence to
add information for a full cutline, likely it will be past tense. "It was
Lemke's first game coming off the disabled list." "The chef worked in
Little Rock for six years before coming to Fayetteville." "Arcaro briefly
flirted with brain surgery before getting back to racing." And so on. Or,
you might say, "Arcaro is coming to Columbia Friday for the Gold Cup
race." (See, it depends sometimes.)

(An exception would be the caption to a mug shot of someone who died.
That would be all past tense. "Joe DiMaggio died Monday in Florida. He
was 86.")

My copy of the AP Stylebook (quite old) does not specifically spell this
out, but it offers examples that follow that trend.

Of course . . . if you can't gently convince the publisher to change his
mind, then you do it his way or find another job. (!) It's his signature
on the paychecks and he can write his own rules.

t.p.

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