In his August 2010 Article in The Guardian, the writer Sean O’Hagan quotes the following from Robert Adams:

“For photographers, the ideal book of photographs would contain just pictures – no text at all” photographer Robert Adams once wrote. He went on to admit that he “once worked through more than a hundred drafts of a four-paragraph statement for a catalogue, all to find something that would just keep out of the way of the pictures“.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/aug/04/writing-about-photography-robert-adams

This view of “words” generally “getting in the way”, generally sums up my own view of words used in the context of photographs. But there are definitely exceptions as well, where the words can and do add an important function.

Barthes makes the point even more strongly that words can be downright damaging when accompanying photographs:

“…the text constitutes a parasitic message designed to connote the [photographic] image, to “quicken” it with one or more second-order signifieds. In other words, and this is an important historical reversal, the image no longer illustrates the words; it is now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image”.     The Photographic Message in BARTHES, 1977: 25.

Generally I am not a fan of captions or even titles for works, other than possibly a reference to location and date taken, if this makes sense in the context. I normally prefer the photograph to speak for itself and to allow the viewer to find their own way into the photograph and explore meanings for him/herself.

But in the right context, I’m not sure that the relationship between words and image should necessarily be a “parasitic” one, with very negative overtones.  Naming images can be a fraught task, and it’s not surprising that many images end up as “untitled” which has become a cliched label in itself now. But there is no doubt that a well-chosen title does add to the meaning of an image – and provides context, which can be important, just as a biography of a photographer provides overall insight into the photographer’s work, and an introductory narrative to a body of work helps to explain the photographer’s motives. It’s a matter of balance and careful location of the words, so that they provide insight, but don’t distract.

In looking at photographs for this post, I came across the work of UK artist David Shrigley – ‘Stop It’, David Shrigley OBE, 2007 | Tate (Links to an external site.), and www.davidshrigley.com. (Links to an external site.)

He seems to deliberately use captions in an ironic and playful way, such as the following example. To me this is either a perfect illustration of Barthes parasitic relationship, or an ironic take on it, or perhaps both.

My favorite example of an image incorporating text explicitly though, is one below by the Finnish Artist, Elina Brotherus. She was living and working in Paris at the time, struggling to learn the language, and feeling isolated.  This is a playful reflection on that language learning process.

Interestingly, Eugene Ionesco (“Theatre of the Absurd”) wrote a play called “The Bald Primadonna” (1950) made up entirely of words and quotes from an English language learning book – it was his first play and was a critique of the failure of communication and language in many situations. 

Elina Brotherus Le Nez de Monsieur Cheval (1999). From: Cotton, C. (2009) the photograph as contemporary art. London, Thames and Hudson. pp164.

In the same article quoted at the beginning of this post by Sean O’Hagan, he later quotes the following by Stephen Shore in his “artist statement” for his first book “Uncommon Places”, published in 1982.

“As I wade a stream, I think wordlessly of where to cast the fly. Sometimes a difference of inches is the difference between catching a fish and not. When the fly I’ve cast is on the water, my attention is riveted to it. I watch the fly calmly and attentively so that when the fish strikes, I strike. Then, the line tightens, the playing of the fish begins, and time stands still. Fishing, like photography, is an art that calls forth intelligence, concentration, and delicacy.”

As well as being a beautiful piece of prose that captures the essence of the photographic process, it seems to me that this is a good illustration of why words can be important in photography, explaining the process, but not necessarily impinging on the later images themselves.

For me, an image is definitely “worth a thousand words”, but sometimes some well-chosen words can and do provide support and clarity. It would also be worth looking in the future at the opposite case where there are words and no images despite being a book about photography, such as Susan Sontag’s “On Photography”.