Documentary & portraiture photography

2.1 The gaze in portraiture 2.2 Image and text 2.3 Case studies

Image and text: Beginners | Intermediate - 1 2 3 | Advanced

Intermediate Part 3 of 3

The artist is motivated to give us experiences that elevate their work into our memory through emotional triggers, giving us a unique contact with the artist and the work. The successful artist reaches us individually through a relationship via the work. This works both ways, as the artist needs a contribution from the viewer, through persuasion or preparation, whether the viewer is aware of this device or not. These triggers convey the message, and stimulate the response in the viewer.

Words are a trigger mechanism - as well as the dictionary meaning there is a meaning that is not fixed, but shifts subtly with emphasis and juxtaposition. Recognising signals and triggers is a process of comparing similarity or difference based on individuality. Photographs are also a trigger mechanism, for while they have no underlying meaning on their own like words have a dictionary reference, they elicit a response. The combination of words and pictures provides a drama. It is a deliberate attempt to dilute or compliment each art form. The single word has one meaning, the photograph on its own has its own intrinsic meaning - the combination of the two changes the meanings of both word and photograph, and forms a third level of meaning where each element can be viewed as separate, but also part of the greater work simultaneously.

The use of words and image combinations hasn’t restricted itself to the merely political statement, but has been used in sexual political discourse as well. Works by Barbara Kruger (amongst many others) use poster techniques with carefully chosen words and images to attack the viewer. Duane Michals uses naïve storytelling with low tech photo-novellas to gently evoke sexual messages and social commentary about homosexual and heterosexual issues.

Artists like Sherin Neshat use a powerful form of combinations of words and text to evoke the emotional landscape of Arab women. Her Arabic text is painted over the final prints, over the exposed skin, in the eyes of the subject - in very personal areas of the human body, in order to extend and reinforce the narratives the pictures on their own convey.

Earlier, I explained how I became interested in the use of words and pictures to extend narrative. My example was that of an Ansel Adams picture, coupled with a letter to his brother, and how this combination had motivated me.

I have not actually used words beyond first names in my piece, called ’reveal‘ but relied on the narrative being constructed by the subject of the photographs and myself in the picture taking process, and the intersection of that suggested narrative with the narrative invented by the viewer of the work.

Subjects are given the opportunity to choose two locations to present themselves in the context of the city of Bristol, where they all live. The portraits are taken in black & white, together with two colour pictures which provide background visuals. Each person is left with four pictures, which reveal themselves in the city in locations of their choice.

My idea was to challenge the viewers to confront someone presenting themselves through the medium of photography, aware of the photographic process and the eventual displaying of the work in a public place. The challenge to the viewer was to decode the images and facts as they are presented, invent a narrative - a life of the person in the pictures, and perhaps, to question their own narrative construction - thereby questioning their own prejudices during the process of their narrative construction.

By not using words, I am hoping to avoid the anecdotal, and incidental, to free the imagination to rely on social conditioning to make these constructed narratives, and in the case of a few (I hope) to challenge their own ideas of how they view portraiture.