The method
How to write the story behind a photo
A photograph records what was in front of the lens. It does not record what everyone in the room knew. The Picmori method is a way to write that part down in about two minutes.
Who
Name everyone, and say how they belong to each other.
Where and when
The place, the year, the season, as near as you can get.
Why it mattered
What was happening that day, and what happened next.
What a photo keeps, and what it loses
Think of a print from a relative's drawer. You can see a street, four people and a dog. You cannot see that two of them are sisters, that the dog belonged to a neighbour, or that the family left that town a month later. The picture survived. The knowledge around it did not.
Digital photos keep a little more, but only the parts a machine can measure. The table shows where the gap is. The three turns are aimed at the right-hand side of it.
Date and time kept
Saved by a phone or digital camera. Missing on prints unless someone wrote it down.
Place kept
Saved as coordinates when location is on. A print has none.
Faces kept
The picture shows them, and some apps group them.
Names and relationships lost
Nothing in the file says "my mother's cousin Ruth".
Who took it lost
The one person at every event who is in none of the photos.
Why that day mattered lost
A last summer in a house looks like any other summer.
What happened next lost
The photo stops; the story does not.
Five rules for a story that lasts
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1
One photo at a time
A story belongs to a single picture. Do not try to caption an album; choose the print that matters most and start there.
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2
Names in full
Write "Auntie Rosa (Rosa Marin, Dad's sister)", not "Auntie". The next reader may not know who Auntie was.
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3
Near enough is good enough
"About 1962, before the move" is far more use than a blank. Say how you know, if you can.
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4
Write it the way you say it
These are notes on the back of a photo, not an essay. One or two sentences per turn.
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5
Keep the words with the picture
A story in a separate notebook gets separated. Put it on a card in the sleeve, in the caption field, or in the file name.
Questions about the method
What is a photo story?
A photo story is a short note kept with a photo that says who is in it, where and when it was taken, and why the moment mattered. It is what people used to write on the back of a print.
Why three questions and not more?
Because three get done. Who, where and when, and why cover what a stranger would need to understand the photo. Longer forms tend to be left unfinished.
Does it work for photos on my phone?
Yes. The same three answers can go in the caption or description field that most photo apps provide. The questions matter more than where you store the answers.
What does "Picmori" mean?
It joins "pic" with "mori". Mori echoes memory, and it is also the Japanese word for forest: one picture is a tree, and a family's pictures with their stories are the forest.
One photo. Three answers. Two minutes.
Start with the print you would save from a fire. No account, nothing uploaded.