You have 1500 characters to play with (on default Mastodon, at least), but you don't have to use all of them. If you're low on spoons or aren't sure what to write, just adding 'a photo of a dog' or 'a painting of some trees' is better than nothing.

Once you start getting used to writing descriptive alt text that covers the core elements of the image and conveys the important bits, you can start expanding on that -

🧵

For example, 'A colour photo of a dog from the neck up. It's a grey-black short hair dog with white patches that frame its eyes and nose. Its head is cocked slightly and its ears are sticking straight up, and it's looking towards the photographer with an eager expression.'

Cover the most important things first, then you can play with more detail (but don't go wild; remember, people using screen readers have to listen to what you've written).

🧵

Alt text for traditional art can feel more daunting, especially for abstract work. It's fine to describe your abstract piece as 'an abstract work of art', and if you piece is meant to symbolise or convey a particular concept you had in mind when creating it, feel free to say that. For example,

'An abstract artwork in black and red ink on white paper, with lines that vary in thickness scrawled in a tangled mess. It's meant to represent how my thoughts feel when I have brain fog.'

🧵

A lot of people on the fediverse won't boost toots with attached media that doesn't have alt-text, because it's not fair to the blind folk in our community and excludes them from the 'social' part of social media. So if you're here to build an audience around your work, it makes sense to make the extra effort to get into the habit of including alt text with your images; you'll get more interaction with your posts that way.

However, if you're a spoonie (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_th…) -

🧵

disability metaphor for the reduced amount of mental and physical energy available for tasks resulting from disability or illness due to ego depletion, fatigue, and other factors

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}