How Do You Title Your Photographs

[Roger Hicks]

I often have to come up with titles for book/magazine captions, so I go for plain descriptions that I can remember when someone asks me about them, e.g.

Storm Light, Monsarraz
Fishermen and a rowing four
Two children

Sometimes the same title will be used twice, but obviously a qualifier is easy to add:

Two children, Easton
Two children, Himalayas

Cheers,

R.

 

[Keith]

Sometimes I think of the title before I shoot the photograph ... quite a lot actually! 😛

 

[thegman]

If I had anything worth giving a title to, I'd go with Roger's style, simple and to the point. I think if I tried to come up with something imaginative, I'd end up cringing at it in a year's time.

 

[mfogiel]

Year, proggressive film roll number, frame number.

 

[Sparrow]

When, what, were ... and who the copyright belongs to. Like this;

 

[sreed2006]

I write computer programs for a living. The variables, functions, and programs need to be named properly or nobody will understand at all what I was trying to do. I have embraced this aspect of the job, and get creative, leaning often to humorous, yet appropriate, naming.

I've found that the same creative urge to give names to variables, routines, and programs is very nearly the same creative urge that goes into naming pictures. I try to find the part of the picture I wish to emphasize, then come up with a title that draws attention to that.

For instance, this picture is named simply "Goo."


Goo by sreed2006, on Flickr

Sometimes, the well of creative ideas runs dry. When that happens for digital images, I just use the name of the file that the camera assigned.

 

[jarski]

short and simple, somehow connected to image, like earlier poster: what, where, when, who + number. e.g. New York 034 or Christmas 01.

completely computer/camera generated gibberish is not very encouraging for viewer IMO, and longer it is, worse. same with meaningless words like Untitled.

 

[Haigh]

I don't like titling but the last exhibition I had the titles on a laminated sheet blu tacked to the wall. They were obvious titles too.

 

[dazedgonebye]

If a name comes to me, I use it. Otherwise I don't.
For me, the thing is not to force it. I hate pretentious names.

 

[gekopaca]

No rules.
Sometimes a title, sometimes not.
Never looking for a title; it's the title which finds me.
Always a real pleasure to be suddenly summoned by a title.

 

[bronney]

My flickr is my diary so I title it with what I was doing at the time. The majority of them though, I titled them as the thing that made me click the shutter at that moment. Some times, I like to title my photo as the neo-mystical ideology of the industrial struggle of the late 16th century with flowers and the dilemma of a dry peanut.

 

[Nikonsnapper]

I am with Keith in that I often think of a title when I am composing the picture. I might modify it slightly. If I don't like the title after posting a picture, I can always change it.