ITAP 9 Image and Text
Text can be a valuable tool for an image. It can
contextualise the image making it more than the some of its parts. It’s
strange, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but add a couple of
well chosen words can have a dramatic effect on power, resonance, or engagement
you have with the picture, occasionally it actually change the way you see the
image, such is the power of words.
I find it fascinating how giving an image a title of
a small component of the image makes the viewer engage with it to find the point
of reference. It’s a valuable tool, but the image still needs to be engaging to
illicit the response in the first place.
Man With A Bottle, by
John Free
For me this is quite a haunting image, the title is
basically asking you to look at the man, he has little detail, but why carry a
bottle, the bottle makes it most likely he’s a hobo. This then invites you to
ask where has he come from, where is he going. It invokes a sense of isolation,
a bleak past and an unknown future.
It’s a clever process, if the image was called hobo
it would degrade the person and there by the story within the picture, having
to work it out yourself seems to make you more empathetic to his situation.
Dear
Mum, by John Free
Similarly with this image if it was called bag lady
you might not give it a second glance, but the title takes your eye directly to
the top left of the letter, yep there it is, Dear Mum, for me, that’s when I
started to engage with the image and ponder all the questions it asks, not
least why is she wearing CSI gloves!
These titles are so good that they take your eye
directly to a tiny aspect of the picture which contextualises the whole scene,
impressive, but I think a title can do more than that, it can actually change
the way your brain interoperates it and thereby what you actually see.
I found this out by chance, I was playing with names
for an image of mine, once I had called by one, bam that was all I could see,
even after I hadn’t seen it for ages,
might just be a characteristic of my demented brain, so judge for your self.
Hopefully you would have
seen a flat surface with the reference of cars and obviously steps with this
image. Maybe it’s a cheep trick or maybe something I can expand upon………..
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