Pro edition
Credit Standard.
The demo publishes a full block on every frame. This is the standard behind it — twelve lines, who supplies each, and the part nobody writes down: what to do when a title drops the block and the crew is the one that loses.
The block, in order
| Line | Supplied by | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Photography | Photographer | Always first. Studio name or individual, not both. |
| Styling | Stylist | Add "Assistant styling" as its own line if there was one. Assistants get credited. |
| Hair | Hair stylist | Separate from make-up unless genuinely one person, in which case "Hair and make-up". |
| Make-up | Make-up artist | Agency name after the person if they are represented. |
| Manicure | Manicurist | Dropped more often than any other line, and visible in more frames than people think. |
| Set design | Set designer | Include the builder if the set was built rather than dressed. |
| Casting | Casting director | Or the title, if they cast it in-house. Say which. |
| Production | Producer | The person who made the day happen. Frequently the photographer, and it still gets a line. |
| Digital tech | Digital technician | On any shoot tethered to a workstation. |
| Retouch | Retoucher | Including when it is the photographer. Especially then. |
| Model | Model, with agency | Format: Name at Agency. The agency is part of the credit, not decoration. |
| Garments | Stylist or brand | Designer names, or "Stylist’s own" where that is the truth. |
Five rules
- Order is fixed: image-makers, then subject, then garments. Do not reorder to put the photographer last out of modesty or first out of ego.
- Everyone gets named, including assistants and including the retoucher when that is you.
- The agency belongs with the model. "Name at Agency" is the format print uses.
- Say "Stylist’s own" when garments were not lent. It is a real credit and it protects the stylist.
- Nobody is credited who was not there. Padding a block is worse than a short one.
When a title drops it
Titles drop credit blocks — usually to save space, occasionally by policy, and the crew is the one that loses. What to do, in order:
- Send the block again, formatted, in the same email as the files. Half of all drops are because nobody supplied it.
- Ask once, politely, naming the specific lines missing. Do it before publication, when it costs the title nothing to fix.
- If it publishes without them, post the frames yourself with the block intact. Your channels are the ones you control.
- Do not withhold files over it. Punishing an editor punishes the crew you are trying to credit.
- Remember it when the next commission comes. A title that will not credit a manicurist is telling you what a shoot day with them is like.
If you are commissioning
- Ask for the credit block with the delivery. A photographer who cannot produce one did not run a crew.
- Budget for the people on it. A block with nine names and a fee for one is a shoot somebody subsidised.
- Put the crediting requirement in the contract if the images go to a publication.
- If you are cutting a line from the block, cut it from the budget too, or say plainly that the work was unpaid.
Conventions vary between markets and titles. Where this page and a publication’s own style guide disagree, the publication wins — but ask before assuming it does.