Advanced / Undergraduate

The use of words in photographs has changed from numbers and initials scratched onto the rebate, to hand written messages adding to the narrative appearing directly on the print. How has this affected our understanding of the relationship between words and pictures? Do we separate the two, or regard the text as something integral to the final work?

My first calling to be a professional photographer occurred in a New York bookshop in the Wall Street area in 1986. I happened upon a copy of Ansel Adams’ autobiography, and opened it at a photograph he had taken of Half Dome, in Yosemite National Park, a black and white image of the face of a mountain, with a storm cloud above. In the accompanying text, he described how he felt at the time he visualized the picture, and the act of taking one of his more famous images. He also printed opposite the photograph, a letter written to his brother outlining the feelings he had at the time, and how the experience moved him. The combination of his words and pictures led me into thinking that this was something I could hope to achieve; the powerful combination of words and images could interpret my experiences and form a medium to share my vision.

Together in the book, the letter and the photograph had a significant meaning in my life, and their relationship to each other had a unique significance in that the meanings of both the photograph, and the letter were altered in a special way by appearing on the same double page spread. My luck was the moment of inspiration one feels when one discovers a path, one that I have followed for 16 years so far. The relationship between the words and the photograph was a trigger for me, perhaps uniquely, and their meaning was so derived because of my state of mind at the time. Reading the same book now (I bought it) and looking at the same pages, the feeling of inspiration felt by Adams as he describes his moment of creation, and the discovery of his calling, returns me to my moment of discovery in the bookshop, and the start of what has become a quest to examine the relationship between words and pictures.

In traditional reproduction, words and pictures had clearly defined roles in relationship to each other. This took the form of the news or magazine photo, and its caption. In other situations, for example in the context of a gallery of photographs displayed on a wall, the captions can take the form of separately mounted type placed adjacent to the relevant photograph. Notes about the ideas, themes and aspirations of the exhibition are produced on a separate sheet of paper to accompany the photographs on the walls, aiding the understanding of the visual work they compliment.

In all of these situations, the text and the photographs are complimentary; they are to be viewed as one entity, where the meanings of each are interdependent. The accompanying words can provide extra detail about the photographs, eg. the four w’s in a press/ news context- who, what, where, why, when - and explanation in photo texts, where the relationship between the words and pictures is of a more ambitious nature.

The photograph can only be defined and understood in terms of the complimentary language of words. The purely visual themes are evaluated and judged by language, our response is qualified by language, and these words define the meaning and context of the photographs in terms of individual response.

The photograph itself is an object in context, defined by the space it occupies in relationship to the viewer, and further defined in terms of the complimentary language used in its presentation. This is a relationship in a state of flux, as the caption can redefine the meaning of a photograph. One photograph with two different captions gives us two different meanings of the photograph. The caption controls the response we have to the picture presented, we derive our meaning from the implicit trust we have in the combination of words and pictures to illustrate a theme, or a point of view. These can vary, and leaves the photograph without any intrinsic meaning on its own. Can the photograph have a stable, intrinsic meaning of its own, devoid of a relationship from controlling or explaining devices, devoid of context? Or are the photographs we see always changing in terms of their context historically, or of our changing circumstances? Roland Barthes said “ the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, and imagination.” Is the only way to combine words and pictures to form one intrinsic meaning to include the words within the closed frame of the photograph itself?

I define the closed frame as the inherent image, as defined by its external boundaries, be it the black line around the edge of the print or reproduction, or the white border surrounding the contents of the space. The image itself, that which appears in the frame provided by the cropping, or edge of the negative or positive, the contents of which could not be there had they not been part of the original exposure or print. This closed frame can only be defined in terms of language if the intention is to explain the meaning of the photograph, otherwise it can be explained in technical photographic terms as the space occupied by the intended image, within the boundaries defined by the author, and represented by such.

In isolation, the photograph invites definition - we are uncomfortable with an image on a page without context - without some form of coded meaning, or clue to where we can make our start point to understanding the inherent meaning of the closed frame. Our language of definition is through the words we use to define other things. We have invented a technical language to help us define photographs, but have failed to describe the photograph in non verbal forms. This traps us into selecting meanings based on clues provided by notes, captions, etc. as described above, at the same time, covers our discomfort with the image on its own. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does our cognitive process. We feel insecure when faced with a purely visual abstract form in the space in front of us. We are challenged into defining the space in order to control it, and pacify our inadequacy to deal with the totally abstract. Thus the closed frame, barren and devoid of verbal and written complimentary explanation, is a threat. A narrative is compulsively formed if there is none provided. This narrative can be from our own imagination, and takes the form of an expression of meaning through language - through words. We do not imagine the next frame, or another photograph that could be next in the sequence. We fill the gaps with words, and define ourselves in the process. This completes the cycle of the artistic experience, where we are given a visual stimulus, and provide ourselves with a meaning that satisfies our interpretations. The degree of collusion with the artist is dependent on everything - the viewer and the circumstances of the viewing. If provided, words are a road the viewer can take towards the intended meaning, if not provided (a rare occurrence in photography) the viewer is free to define meaning through the only process we know to reach understanding - words and language.

So are we trapped in our own language? Are we controlled by the photograph’s context and our circumstances into a narrative we cannot escape?

Let us explore the logic of creation further.

Visualization by the artist is a primary tool. The realization of an idea by a photographer is limited to their sensibility to visual relationships that the artist creates or manipulates. Comprehension of such work is dependent on values that are recognizable at the instant, even if at another time the values are changed by different circumstances. Recognition is the key to understanding of work viewed. Looking at a photograph is a new experience, and that new experience is compared with information held as memory. Recognition is a comparison between the self after having seen and compared new information, with the old self before the new experience. The strength of experience affects the storage of the experience, its strength changing it from short term memory to long term memory. This strength is measured by the effect of the experience in the long term. An experience that is unpleasant is quickly forgotten. This recognition of experience and transformation into long term memory requires emotional or intellectual intensity to raise the experience above the normal. 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.

With the inclusion of words in pictures, the drama is a fully constructed intrusion. The strength of the drama lies in the juxtaposition of the two meanings - one for the picture, one for the words, and their relationship - ironic, complimentary or antagonistic.

We can begin to describe works as open or closed. Open works have meanings left outside the boundary of the presented image, a caption is an extension of the meaning, a device to add to the meaning of the picture that necessarily changes the meaning through established social and media understanding. This can take the form of anecdotal evidence, the who, what, where, why, when type of newspaper convention. Using words within the picture frame, leads to a closed work, where the relationship is fixed, the words are part of the image as a whole and act upon its meaning in a variety of ways, all intended by the relationship between the two by the artist. These devices are extraordinarily pre-visualized, and the meanings very defined. Nuance such as font style, font size, placement, etc extend the technical devices beyond the included semantic value of the words.

In this way the words are signs that deliver meanings of almost infinite possibility - but are controlled by the artist to mean certain things only, rather than being universal or wide ranging in their meaning. This is a difference that is subtle, yet more powerful than the caption, and has arrived as a device to take the caption beyond the control of the viewer, to remove the anecdote and confront the literal.

The essence of writing is legibility. Words are signs that enable us to communicate ideas with other people across the distance of time and space. They form a function, in a literal sense, and a visual sense - the font, type size and weight of the words all contribute to emphasis and subtle changes in meaning. Our legacy is the Roman lettering; the history of lettering in our time is based on the styles and conventions introduced by the Romans. With the formation of the printing press, the emphasis shifted from hand lettering in special books, to one of functional design of pages. The letters that once were works of art in themselves, giving detailed emphasis in hand written texts that were communal and central to the few institutions in early communities, became a tool in a job of mass reproduction. This is s subtle difference, the monk with a lifetime dedicated to copying one book in immaculate detail, compared with the printer, using a selection of types available for his press.

By the 1860’s, book printing began to use ideas about creating atmosphere on a page using different letters and styles, incorporating them into pictorial designs, mimicking those of the later Middle Ages, as evidenced by the fixation with Gothic letter forms of the period. The art of lettering was introduced to schools of design in Vienna, Paris, Munich, London and Berlin. The new discipline was pioneered by two teachers, Rudolf von Larisch in Berlin, and Edward Johnston in London. Art Nouveau examined the possibilities of letter construction. In this period, art was becoming broken down and included in all aspects of life. Design began to have great importance, and artists took time to craft text for works involving their greater art.

The conflict between this representational lettering and artistic lettering came to a head in the Dada movement, begun in Zurich in 1917. Letters, the normal means of communication between layers of conventional society they abhorred, were used as a means of attack. The chaos of typefaces in the magazine, Dada, was a means of illustrating their message. Letters were also already a significant element in the surrealist vocabulary, with single letters and fragments of text from external sources appearing in cubist paintings and collage.

By the end of the first world war, the letter had been freed from the context of conventional layout, and had become a medium used by the Constructivist and Bauhaus movements as a design tool, an icon. The Constructivists made unique patterns out of letters, altering the size, weight and orientation of the letters, treating them as components in their art work which mirrored the components that formed the new machine age. Two famous designers were Piet Zwart and El Lissitzky, both of whom used photography and letters as components in collage and poster designs. This modern approach gradually transplanted the Romanesque schools such a Johnston’s in London, and became part of mainstream design until this day. The letter had been modernized, and liberated, given an inherent power of its own as a graphic symbol - a modern idiom, the source of today’s logo.

Within the closed frame, we have seen how relationships between words and image can be constructed. In the preceding examples, the narratives are directly influenced by this combination, and the success of the narrative relies on the successful combination of the two graphic elements in collusion.

Where this has come up short, a gap is left in the narrative which we have the opportunity to fill, or to ignore, depending on our response to the work.

Historically, some words have always been singled out and illustrated visually as titles, and thus a device to entice the reader into the work. The evaluation of the work of artists described earlier shows the mechanisms surrounding this attempt to entice, and their relative success or failure.

In political terms, the word as a graphic element was liberated to a political symbol during the Dada movement. Here, words and letters included in photographic based collage, extend the narrative of the closed frame and extend both mediums used towards a third level. This graphic language was picked up by various streams of artists, on both sides of the Atlantic, from Atget to Walker Evans, and developed into the current powerful tools for expression used in the last century by a growing number of photo/ text-based artists.

Evans used words within composition to extend meaning to his photographs, and play with the concept of graphic elements within the closed frame at the time of composition.

His works influence generations of photographers like Aaron Siskind, and Helen Levitt to photograph graphic elements like graffiti on the streets in the fifties. Here the narratives are recorded by the photographer, the graphic elements are there in life, and selected by the artists, edited, cropped, controlled. The narratives scrawled on the walls are by other people, the photographer using his medium to diversify the intended audience by mass production. Here, the messages are dispersed widely, where before they could only be temporary, and have an element of chance in their discovery.

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 in the same way the Dada artists first attempted. 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 siting 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.

End

Further Reading:
Look at the following notes on individual photographers to see my comments on how they used a combination of words and pictures to express their messages.
Hamish Fulton,
Karen Knorr,
Barbara Kruger,
Duane Michals,
These can be found in the web based learning resource at:
http://www.dshed.digitised/reveal