Previously I’ve discussed how words might complement images in my planned book of photographs taken on various travels (aka holidays) (16th October 2014, 4th February 2015 and 22nd February 2015). There is an underlying assumption that words might be needed, but is that justified?
Some artists and critics argue that a picture universal in its meaning needs no words, it speaks for itself in revealing some essential truth(s). This is fine for those who know the language; those who don’t will be left with a superficial understanding. It also assumes that there is such a thing as ‘universal meaning’ and if there is that the picture has captured it. This approach, which can be seen as artistic arrogance, is particularly difficult when it involves individual pictures; it has more validity in a portfolio of pictures or where there is something else to set a context. It can work very well in books where individual pictures are not captioned, but in such cases an accompanying text and list of captions in almost invariably included.
Occasionally photographers try to reflect the search for the universal with enigmatic titles, e.g. Stieglitz’s Equivalent (1925), Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s Optic Parable (1931) and John Stezaker’s Mask XXXV (2007). This can be at best unhelpful and at worst confusing and pretentious.
Nancy Newhall writing in Aperture in 1952 (‘The Caption – The Mutual Relation of Words/Photographs’ reprinted in Aperture Magazine Anthology – The Minor White Years 1952-1976 (2012)) said: ‘The number of those for whom really great photographs speak a language beyond words is steadily increasing. But most of us still need verbal crutches to see with.’ And still very true! She identified three crutches, title, caption and text.
Title: ‘an identification, stating of whom or what, where and when a photograph was made. A title is static. It has no significance apart from its photograph.’
Caption: ‘Briefly stated information, usually occupying no more than four short lines, which accompanies a photograph, adds to our understanding of the image, and often influences what we think of it. A caption is dynamic…’ She defines four main types of caption. The enigmatic caption: a catchphrase from an accompanying text that catches the eye and draws the viewer into that text. The caption as miniature essay: ‘accompanies a single photograph and comprises with it a complete and independent unit’. The narrative caption: ‘directs attention into the photograph…then narrating what goes on in the photograph, and ending with a commentary’. The additive caption: ‘does not state or narrate some aspect of the photograph; it leaps over facts and adds a new dimension. It combines its own connotations with those of the photograph to produce a new image in the mind of the spectator’.
Text: The main literary statement accompanying a series of photographs, usually a complete and independent text.
Three of these approaches can be applied to the photograph below.
Title: Ruined church, Kayakoy, Turkey, July 2002
Narrative Caption: A child with a toy gun poses for his parents in a ruined Greek Orthodox church in Kayakoy, Turkey. Kayakoy, formerly Livissi, was an Ottoman Greek town of 6,000 people until the persecution of the Greeks from 1914 left the town abandoned and in ruins by 1922. UNESCO has adopted it as World Friendship and Peace Village; the Turkish government sees it as a tourism opportunity.
Additive Caption: Nihilism is a counsel of despair; better to believe in something. But belief in what? God, a god, gods? Isms, ideologies, ideals? Does it breed fear and scapegoating? Is there room for difference, for toleration and acceptance of the messy realities of life?