Describing your position in a photo (2025)

Hi friends, help me out here , I'm still kind of confused about how to tell your position in the photo, I know you can say "I'm on the left" or "I'm on the right" but what about if you're behind or front? Do you say "I'm at the back/front"? , "I'm on the back/front"? , "I'm in the back/front"?, "I'm behind"? For example in this photo how can you tell your position to your friend? (This photo is not mine btw)

If the rows are clear, we say "in the first row" or "in the front row" or "in the back row" or "in the 3d row". Within a row we say "leftmost" or "3d from the left", or "rightmost" or "4th from the right" or "in the middle".

This picture is messy. Here the rows are not clear, so we might say "kneeling" for the middle 4 and "crouching" for a few people behind them and "standing" for the others. It isn't even clear which people are "in the back row". It is impossible to invent an exact description (in words) for the location of each person in this picture. You would probably have to add things like "female" and "bearded" and "with long black hair" and other things to each person's description. Even then it would be very difficult, in this picture.

So in my another example here, If each person has to describe where they are, are these sentences correct?

Person 1 : "Me at the front"
Person 2 : "Me on the right"
Person 3 : "Me on the left"
Person 4 : "Me in the back"
Thank you in advance

dojibear said:

If the rows are clear, we say "in the first row" or "in the front row" or "in the back row" or "in the 3d row". Within a row we say "leftmost" or "3d from the left", or "rightmost" or "4th from the right" or "in the middle".

This picture is messy. Here the rows are not clear, so we might say "kneeling" for the middle 4 and "crouching" for a few people behind them and "standing" for the others. It isn't even clear which people are "in the back row". It is impossible to invent an exact description (in words) for the location of each person in this picture. You would probably have to add things like "female" and "bearded" and "with long black hair" and other things to each person's description. Even then it would be very difficult, in this picture.

Click to expand...

What if you want to say the names of all persons from the left to the right? Can you say "From the left: name surname 1, name surname 2..."?

Yes. This is quite common, in my experience. If there are three rows they are the "front row", the "middle row", and the "back row" (the "front row" is closest to the camera).

Some pictures say "from the left:", some say "left to right:" and some say nothing and you assume left to right.

You can also think about a clockwise ordering. Name the starting position (eg the back or the 12 o'clock position): 4, 2, 1, 3.

If you have subjects arranged like this

you can say 'clockwise from top left'.