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What's in a name?
fjcvisual
Registered Users Posts: 201 Major grins
I wanted to put this out there to see what you all think about the titles we give our images.
What I am interested to know is how much does an image title mean to you when you are judging a photo. Or for that matter anytime you see an image, does the title of the image help to evoke a certain emotion / feeling?
One way to think about this is to look at an image without reading the title, then read the title and see if knowing the title moves you differently when you look at the image again.
Granted, some titles are a bit mundane like a picture of a docked boat and a title "Boat at the end of the dock" (Although some feel the simplicity of such title to be appealing). Compare this with one analogs, metaphorical, or profound such as an opaque nude with the title "Remember me?". Once a title is attached to an image, it can tell much about the inspiration, what the author is attempting to convey.
I guess it goes without saying, since I pose this question in this thread, how much weight should we give the title of an image when judging an image for one of the challenges?
Jim
What I am interested to know is how much does an image title mean to you when you are judging a photo. Or for that matter anytime you see an image, does the title of the image help to evoke a certain emotion / feeling?
One way to think about this is to look at an image without reading the title, then read the title and see if knowing the title moves you differently when you look at the image again.
Granted, some titles are a bit mundane like a picture of a docked boat and a title "Boat at the end of the dock" (Although some feel the simplicity of such title to be appealing). Compare this with one analogs, metaphorical, or profound such as an opaque nude with the title "Remember me?". Once a title is attached to an image, it can tell much about the inspiration, what the author is attempting to convey.
I guess it goes without saying, since I pose this question in this thread, how much weight should we give the title of an image when judging an image for one of the challenges?
Jim
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From what I've seen in these challenges, it seems like if a photo is a really good photo and fits the theme, it doesn't matter much what the title is; it will do well. If the shot is not as great, a good title could draw more people to it where a poor title might cause people to not look as closely at it. If you aren't drawn to the photo enough to look at it a bit more closely, you are not as apt to vote for it.
The challenge going on right now is one where the interpretation can be pretty broad, and the title can really help do exactly what you said - to tell what the author is attempting to convey. If the entry is more abstract or an atypical interpretation, the title can help the viewer better understand the shot. I'm sure my entry this time is not a normal interpretation of the poem, it's also not a normal style for me; sometimes my mood shows up in my photos. One of the reasons I really love these challenges!!
A photograph is an artistic expression of life, captured one moment at a time . . .
http://bartlettphotoart.smugmug.com/
I do like a good title--something that is fun, a play on words, etc.
In this week's challenge, there are so many images in the poem that reading the titles does help see how the theme was interpeted.
www.rteest42.com
www.aliaslaceygreen.com
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Well, as you may have noticed in the challenge you are running, I like titles.
I don't think they influence me that much when looking at a photo.
If I don't understand a photo, the title might help me look at it more to try understanding what the picture was about. I might recognize the effort but I will not change my mind from 'I don't get it' to 'awesome'. Maybe I might think 'nice try'.
And when I like the photo, I just enjoy a lot a good title which helps me connect more with the photographer and it makes me smile and think 'oh yes you did'.
For example in your contest sense of a place, I like the picture with the fabric floating and the one with the sun above the canyon and I would have loved for both to have a title other than where they were taken. And if it is playing with words, extra bonus!
Claire
Travel Blog English: http://www.zigzagonearth.com
Travel Blog French: http://zigzagvoyages.fr
Infoproduct Creation Blog : https://structurinfo.com
I think a title or caption can add impact to a photo. But when I am judging a photo, I try not to give too much weight to the title and to just look at the quality of the picture. If I don't understand the title, I may be less likely to vote for the photo, but one of the interesting things to me is that often I have not voted for the winning photo. There are some types of photos that I just do not like, and I find it hard to vote for them unless they are just so clearly outstanding that I must.
In the last challenge, I thought that my caption was probably too obscure and because I was being too clever, it did not present the photo in the best possible way. I considered changing it, but in the end did not. I was probably too pleased with myself for thinking of that way to illustrate the challenge.
In other venues (other than a contest where I feel that the photo should stand on its own merits), a caption is VERY helpful, and I take a certain amount of time figuring out what to write. I like words almost as much as pictures.
If I am illustrating a visit to Hawaii's Volcano National Park where it isn't a photo for 'art', but a photo for information, I want the caption to tell the viewer what they are looking at. (Is it a little steam vent, or are we in a helicopter looking down at steam from above.) It's pragmatic captioning like "Boat at the end of a dock", but for a photo of a boat at the end of a dock, I might have said something a little more interesting, like "Our boat at Lucaya with scarred trailboards from the anchor coming adrift during a storm"
Most of the photos that I take are of this type - I want to show people what something actually looks like. So I tend to prefer photos that are informational, rather than artistic or sentimental.
Personally I tend to fight against branding and marketing, it is just one of my many soap boxes these days
The challenges are different, they should be about the image, it's impact, technicality, wow factor etc and whether it fits the brief for that challenge or not. The title may help in that, but it might also hinder. I love word play, and I also try to put a lot of myself into my photos, but sometimes I think this just confuses the viewer. They don't always see what we want them to see, we all have a tendency to misunderstand titles and descriptions, and sometimes we get completely the wrong impression from a photo. I can think of a couple of my challenge entries last year where people commented that they just didn't see how they met the challenge theme, and I think they were distracted or sent down the wrong path by me trying to be too clever or personal with the image title. Since then I've tried to be more literal in an attempt to minimise misunderstandings and/or misinterpretations.
I often use song lyrics for photo titles, and if other people "get it" I hope they enjoy the connection. But if they don't "get it" they probably think I'm completely mad!
To me, there's a difference between a title and a caption. (the 'Alt' text for a web image is a separate and special case.) Then there's the limitations imposed by filename lengths and the question of searchability. . . .
Part of what follows might be from some ideas I was exposed to as part of a journalism class a long time ago.
Briefly: A caption conveys information about the photo that may not be easily apparent from the photo itself. The example of "Boat at the end of a dock" doesn't add to the information already contained in the image, whereas "Docked at Chacala the evening after the storm; note the damage from the anchor coming loose. We made sure to double the lashings after this." serves to call attention to parts of the photograph AND imparts information that we might not otherwise get. . . specifically that the damage depicted was storm related and not 'normal' wear-and-tear, and further, that special measures can be taken to prevent its occurrence in the viewers life. As such, a caption may be quite long, and should NOT be a mere description of what the photo is, but instead a tool to augment the viewer's understanding of the visual information.
A title, however, like those on books and articles, serves mainly to categorize the image with others like it, and perhaps to add a little to the 'mood' of the photograph: "Boat and Dock, Sunset, Chacala, Feb. 2011" almost serves as a key-word set for searching, and (to my mind, at least) predisposes the viewer to expect a certain type of scene, whereas "After the Storm, Evening, Chacala, 2011" evokes quite a different expectation. Once primed, I'm then spring-loaded to compare-and-contrast the present visuals with others, similarly described, that I have experienced before. This may-or-may-not be a good state of mind to encourage in a judge. (?) I'd much rather one of my photos be judged on its own merits, rather than as a representative of some real or imagined set of other images, which might not even be in this particular contest. YMMV, though.
And last, but certainly important, is the 'alt' text-- this is an often overlooked addition to electronic presentation that hopefully describes the content AND mood of the image as succinctly as possible so that the visually impaired can garner some idea of what's going on in the image and how they relate to the overall content of the page. Here it's important to be clear and unambiguous in describing what the image contains. ("A 30 foot sailboat is tied at the end of a dock. There is damage on parts of the hull. The owner of the boat is performing repairs as the sun sets beyond the breakwater.")
Maybe there's a middle ground wherein the verbiage does not seek to define nor to augment the image, but instead has a parallel meaning that can stand on its own but is synergistic with the visual component? Here's where a passage from prose or a stanza of poetry or a verse of a song might reside.(?) The danger here is that either the viewer doesn't make the mental leap and spends some of the time they might use to inspect the image going 'Huh?' or worse, or doesn't like something about the passage and carries that negativity into the image with them.
TL, DR:
There is a time, place and usefulness of each approach to adding text 'support' to an image, and the 'best' one varies according to the requirements of the presentation. However, there may be unintended consequences. . .
(lurk)