If you follow my photography you might notice that the titles I give to my photographs are not typically very “poetic,” instead tending to be relatively straightforward labels of the subjects. If a photograph is of a place I often simply refer to the location in the title, perhaps with the addition of a word or two identifying aspects such as season or time of day. If the photograph features a snow-covered tree, my title will likely be along the lines of “Snow-Covered Tree, Clouds.”
Not very creative, but I have my reasons.
Some photographers prefer to provide evocative and poetic titles for their images. To make up a few examples that sound like what I’m thinking of, you might see titles along the lines of “Endurance,” “At the Ends of the Earth,” or “Standing Against the Storm.” Another approach is to use enigmatic titles along the lines of “What She Saw,” “It Came in the Night,” “Sometimes it Gets Old,” “I Think of You When the Light Fades.” (To the best of my knowledge these are not the actual titles of anyone’s actual photographs… but you never know! If it turns out that they are real, the connections were entirely coincidental.)
I’m not generally a fan of that approach to naming photographs. I hope that the photograph may speak for itself through whatever it is and says as a photograph. If the subject and its execution as a photograph evoke thoughts of strength or beauty or wonder or something else compelling, then I prefer to let the photograph do the talking. If it doesn’t have this effect on its own, I’d rather not try to gussy it up by adding a title to compensate for what it doesn’t intrinsically “say” as a visual image.
In addition, often the photograph is not “about” anything other than the subject itself – it is simply presented as is for consideration on its own. Not every photograph of the sea has to try to explicitly be about loneliness or a distant shore or an emotional storm or calm thoughts or a long voyage, real or metaphorical – sometimes it is just a beautiful image of the sea, with all of the interesting (we hope!) visual elements of place, light, color, texture, form, and so forth. Not every photograph of an urban environment must try to suggest a story of alienation, or urbane sophistication, or people in a rush, etc. – it may just present elements of the urban scene for your consideration as imagery. You are free—encouraged, even—to make your own associations and find whatever meaning of your own you can in the image.
I suppose that I do need to qualify all of this a bit.
First, this is my point of view, and I understand and appreciate that others may feel that the title is part of the message of the photograph. In fact, there are great examples of photographs in which the title really is a significant part of what “makes the photograph work.” In some cases an ironic dissonance between the nature of the image and the title can be effective, for example.
Second, I don’t necessarily think that description of the context of the photograph is a bad thing. (I’d better not think that – or I’d have a lot of explaining to do concerning how I present photographs in this blog!) I think it is reasonable to inform viewers about the subject and say something about the circumstances of the creation of the photograph, for a bunch of reasons that I won’t enumerate here.
Third, I suppose that my bias might be traced to several sources. One may be the fact that many (but not all) of the photographers whose work I admire tend to take a similar approach. Another may be from my background in music, where a piece may simply be what it is and not have a specific non-musical meaning at all.
One more thing…
I decided a few years ago to mostly avoid using photograph titles that identify places that are best not named. Sometimes this is simply because the photograph is more about the immediate subject (those “rocks and trees”) than about the large and specific area and its identity. In other cases those “Trees and Rocks” are in a location whose character might be harmed by too many visits by too many people. If I were to name the location with too much specificity this could make me complicit in a process that accelerates the destruction of the very things that make it so precious— its quiet, peace, remoteness, and even its loneliness. In the past, when news traveled more slowly and among smaller numbers of people, naming these places had a much less dramatic effect. However, today, any mention is instantly cataloged and entered into searchable databases, cross-linked with other references, ready to be looking up and attached to full GPS coordinates and detailed directions for access. In this world I think it is better to be circumspect about such places. And, no, I’m not trying to “keep my places secret.” I’m happy for other people who deeply love and appreciate them as I do to discover them in the same ways I do… and to join me in sharing a responsibility for their protection and safety.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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Hi Ivan: I enjoyed your post on this. And I tend to agree that there is no “right answer” to the question of how to title, and that the image and the circumstances of its presentation can make a lot of difference.
Dan
Dan –
You’ll probably get a ping, but I shared my thoughts on the topic on my own blog after your post made me think some more about it. Here is the link – http://ivanmakarov.com/pblog/on-naming-our-photographs
Dan –
Excellent post. I’ve seen all kinds of approaches, and especially now when photography is seen so easily on the internet.
I approach with with a mixture of approaches you mention. For some photographs I leave a simple title, or no title at all, like my recent Disney Hall series. Other photographs I leave a title in your fashion – description (i.e., “Morning Light Over Utah Lake”). While others, I may be a bit more creative with the title.
I tend to think of photographs as stories. Some stories have simple titles (i.e., “Anna Karenina”), while the title for others add a theme to the story you are supposed to look for (“War and Peace” or “Crime and Punishment”). Some books, like the two I mentioned, would read so differently if they had different titles (especially the 8,000 pages long “War and Peace”). So in my mind, it’s all about what story you are trying to tell – or how to tell it. Title can be a good tool this way.
The most important thing to remember is that there is no right or wrong approach to this.
Thanks for the thoughtful post, Ivan. I should probably make it clearer that I’m describing my own approach and the reasons for it, and not trying to say that any other approach is necessarily wrong – so your point about “all kinds of approaches” is well taken. In fact, certain photographs and photographers come to mind whose use of titles is really an important part of how the photographs work.
Dan
Patrick, that’s Pretty much what I do, though I probably use too many commas! (“place name, morning” or “thing, location” ;-)
Well, I will say that I do integrate some of your ideas into my naming conventions. In the “Maelstrom” example I have three different versions so they are 1, 2 and 3. I intend to return there someday and I’ll probably continue with 4, 5 and 6!
After looking through my photos again, I notice that I’ll make titles like “(location) morning” or “(location) skies”, or things like that. So I guess I don’t really name everything with some evocative or dramatic meaning!
Patrick
Thanks for posting, Patrick. Interesting that you mention songs. Songs often have titles for two related reasons – they have lyrics, from which the title most often comes, and songs are usually about something besides the abstractions of melody and rhythm and harmony – and that “something” is found in the lyrics, making the use of titles derived from the lyrics doubly appropriate.
On the other hand, much instrumental music – though not all – does not have such “descriptive” titles. Classical symphonies are most often just identified by number and key and opus (or equivalent) in most cases. Some get “titles” that relate to the circumstances of their creation or performance – e.g. “London” symphonies. Solo instrumental pieces – with some notable exceptions – are often just known as, for example, Sonata #1 in some key and with some opus number.
Things change towards but not all the way to descriptive and “poetic” titles that reflect the composer’s thoughts about meaning later on, but there are still many who believe that a piece of instrumental music doesn’t have to be about anything but what it is, and that if it is such a piece it shouldn’t have a title that suggests otherwise.
Dan
It is interesting that even though songs commonly have evocative names, that you would not go the non-evocative route. But I agree that many classic photographers go with names like “Moonrise – Hernandez, New Mexico” etc.
Yes, a ‘scape may just be a ‘scape, but at least in my case, some dramatic thing usually happens that makes it easy to name it. In fact, if I have trouble naming it, I usually don’t bother to process it because it is too bland or just not very interesting.
That said, I do add the location to my titles, Like “Maelstrom – Kilauea, Kauai” for example. It may be a maelstrom, but it is just a picture of Kauai after all!
Patrick
I used use more descriptive titles before my stroke. After my stroke, I “lost” some of my creativity…or maybe I got tired of trying to come up with “cute” titles…LOL! Now I title my work what it is. It’s easier for me and just like the other Mike, I do it for SEO as well.
Mike, thanks for your thoughtful reply. Toni, your print is a pretty good example of how I title photographs, isn’t it? Bret, that photograph is a great example of what I’m talking about. :-)
Dan
Excellent points Dan! I used to worry too much about the title of a photograph, thinking that had as much to do with the image as the image itself, but I’d rather just let the photo speak for itself. Plus, images that invoke one emotion in you may invoke another in someone else, so titling an image with an emotion may tend to slant someone else’s reaction.
Great post, Dan. I’ve never been good at writing beautiful titles to my photos. I gave up on it a while ago. I’ve been titling photos in a very straightforward manner since and it makes my life much easier. Nothing against those who are able to write catchy titles but I’m not one of them. My typical title, “Crepuscular Rays at Green River Overlook, Utah”.
Wow, never really thought about it the way you perceive it..
Your Title Best Fit The Photo I Bought Frome Yea…SMILE
I actually used to title mine a lot like you do…mainly because of SEO issues. If I title a post “Flaming Out” or “Superstition Mountains at Sunset”…guess what people searching for Superstition Mountains will find first?
But…I got tired of that…it’s boring to me.
I do get your point though…let the photo speak for itself. Still, it’s kind of fun to at least title something the way you see it, not the way others interpret it.
Plus, some of these may hang up in a gallery someday and it would be nice to have a kind of cool name to go with them.
I dunno really…but I like your blog post. Nice to see the other side.