Photo story prompts
Questions to ask about travel photos
A phone records where and when a travel photo was taken. It does not record why you stopped there, who you were with or what you ate afterwards. Choose ten photos from a trip and answer these for each.
Who
- Who were you travelling with?
- Who did you meet that you still think about?
- Who took this photo, and how did you ask them?
- Who would you bring if you went back?
Where and when
- What is this place called, and how did you find it?
- Which day of the trip was it?
- Where had you just come from, and where did you go next?
- Where did you stay that night?
Why it mattered
- What had you expected, and how was it different?
- What went wrong that day?
- What did you eat, and would you eat it again?
- Why did you take this photo and not another?
One tip
Do it on the journey home. The names of small places and people are gone within a few weeks; the photos are not.
Common questions
How do I caption travel photos so they still mean something later?
Skip what the photo already shows. Write who you were with, why you were there and one thing that happened outside the frame.
How many travel photos should I keep stories for?
About ten per trip. Choosing is part of remembering, and ten explained photos are looked at more often than two hundred unexplained ones.
More prompt sets
Old family photos
For the box of prints where half the faces have no name.
12 questions
Photos with grandparents
Questions to ask a grandparent while they hold the photo.
12 questions
Wedding photos
The names and small disasters the album does not record.
12 questions
Baby's first year
A few words per photo, written while you still remember.
12 questions
One photo. Three answers. Two minutes.
Start with the print you would save from a fire. No account, nothing uploaded.