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Print Captions/Titles

Ginger

Lydia Zakia-Fahey

Beautiful Day

David A. Page

A Parable: A blind man with no legs sits in a park begging. A sign beside him reads HAVE COMPASSION. I AM BLIND. People walk by and ignore the sign, the man, and his hat, a receptacle for coins. A well-dressed businessman walks past him, turns around and stands in front of the man. He picks up the sign, writes something on the back and places it back where it was and with what he wrote showing. People continue to walk by but now are dropping coins and bills into his open hat. The blind man is thrilled and collects the money. When the businessman returns, the blind man asks him what he wrote on the sign. He replies that what he wrote was TODAY IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY AND I CANNOT SEE IT.

Horse

Richard D. Zakia

Generic: By captioning this photograph “Horse,” it could be any one of a class of such horses. The caption makes the horse the main subject—not the landscape or the location in Ireland.

Osprey

Mike Cantwell

Specific: The caption identifies the type of bird for those not familiar, who might mistake it for an eagle.

Suggestive: Guarding the Nest.

Equivalent

Thomas L. McCartney

Ambiguous: One might ask what the subject in the photograph is equivalent to. Stieglitz used the word to caption cloud photographs that, for him, were equivalent to a feeling they instilled. Such a title is usually subjective and personal.

Specific: Round Butte, Route 191-Utah

Quote: “Rock of Ages” could be of interest here and be associated with a familiar phrase.

Covered Bridge

David A. Page

Generic Caption: Covered Bridge

Specific Caption: Clarence Woods Covered Bridge, Woolwine, Virginia

Ambiguous Caption: In remembrance, John Woods Shelton 1991–2009

Narrative Caption: Just one week after his high school graduation, the great-grandson of the builder of this bridge, John Woods Shelton, died in an automobile accident as he returned from his Myrtle Beach celebrations. His family mourned in seclusion for two weeks, but had an obligation to open this bridge on their ancestral property for the Woolwine Covered Bridge Festival. As it was a major playground area for the deceased and the center point of many of his happy days, the family decorated the bridge with the brightly colored flowers from his funeral and placed a bright yellow chair where he often sat as a child listening to the river and contemplating a future that was not to be.

Lewis Hine

Poetic Caption:

(Hine’s note for this photograph: Rhodes Mfg. Co. Spinner. A moment’s glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 11 years old. Been working over a year. Lincolnton, N.C.)

Flowers

Richard D. Zakia

Question: Captions can be used to raise a question. In this case, is this a photograph of flowers? Is a dandelion a flower? Most would probably say “no”; some might say “yes.” What defines a flower—color, beauty, fragrance, rareness? A botanist would describe a flower as a seed-bearing part of a plant surrounded by bright colored petals.

Untitled, 18, 2009

Richard D. Zakia

Untitled: Some photographs are labeled Untitled so as not to direct or influence the viewer’s response. The paradox is that by titling the photograph Untitled, it is given a title. However, it does provide a way to identify photographs. A friend who is a recognized fine art photographer and has a PhD in art history was asked whether he captions his prints or titles them. His reply was that he titles them, but that most are untitled with a number and date. Dictionaries seem to be unclear as to the difference between a title and a caption. The best distinction found was by a linguist who said that a caption is a definition, or an explanation while a title is a suggestion. A title for this photograph could have been Tree of Sorrow or Weeping Branches.