Last month my friend and colleague Andrew Wiard attended the annual IPTC (International Press and Telecommunications Council) Metadata Conference in Paris on behalf of The British Press Photographers’ Association. He came back with one of the most sensible ideas that I have ever heard for getting all photographers to add their basic information to all of their pictures – The Four Cs.

We spoke briefly about the idea that everyone should add a caption, their credit, copyright and contact details into the relevant and widely used fields in their IPTC metadata and then Andrew wrote his quick guide to The Four Cs, the Five Ws and an A – which should be required reading for all photographers, all students of photography and anyone who uses photographs in print, on line or anywhere else for that matter.

I strongly recommend that you download and read Andrew’s article here:

One of the most overlooked features of modern cameras is that you can add your contact and copyright details in the camera which in turn automatically adds them to any photographs taken with that camera and so if you only do one thing to improve the protection of your images, their searchability on line and your chances of honest people finding you wanting to license your work then go ahead and add your details in camera. You should definitely back that up with everything in Andrew’s piece but adding stuff in camera takes minutes and saves hours and hours.