Should photos have something to say?

[Pickett Wilson]

Should a photo have something to say in the same way a written essay does? We play with light, shapes, composition. We look at shadow density, bokeh, highlights, sharpness. We say, "man, that's a great photo!"

But is there a visual language that we can make of photos to tell a tale, explain events, parse complex ideas? To see beyond the "object" we hold in our hands to to the story, or concept or idea that object frames?

I guess I'm asking if photography, because of its ubiquity, is any longer able to communicate, or have our photos become abstract constructs, pictures in an exhibition, quickly evaluated and discarded. Can we shoot essays that communicate as effectively as words? Or perhaps photography was never able to do so.

Any ideas?

 

[photogdave]

I think photography CAN say something but it doesn't necessarily have to say anything.
If the photographer is intending to communicate something with the image and does it successfully, then that is fantastic. But not every image committed to film or silicon needs to express anything beyond "I saw this and it looks cool", or something to that effect.
I remember many moons ago arguing with the instructor of studio lighting class I was taking. He wanted our final projects to communicate an idea or theme. I argued that I paid to learn lighting techniques and I didn't have anything particularly important to "communicate" through a photo at that time, so I shouldn't be judged because of that.
I won.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I agree to a degree. But how long is it before nobody cares about another New Yorker walking on the street or another rock or another tree? With the billions of photos flooding the internet, must photography move to a level where it communicates to keep from becoming irrelevant?

 

[antiquark]

Should a photo have something to say in the same way a written essay does? We play with light, shapes, composition. We look at shadow density, bokeh, highlights, sharpness. We say, "man, that's a great photo!"

IMHO, it adds depth to a picture if I know that the photographer is making an attempt to tell me something. If I find a nice picture, but it's basically some random snapshot that the author himself doesn't think is special, then I'm not as intrigued.

But is there a visual language that we can make of photos to tell a tale, explain events, parse complex ideas? To see beyond the "object" we hold in our hands to to the story, or concept or idea that object frames?

There is a visual language hidden in our subconscious. Sadly, as soon as an element of that language is codified, then it instantly becomes a cliche. The trick is to access that subconscious language while hiding your intentions.

I guess I'm asking if photography, because of its ubiquity, is any longer able to communicate, or have our photos become abstract constructs, pictures in an exhibition, quickly evaluated and discarded. Can we shoot essays that communicate as effectively as words? Or perhaps photography was never able to do so.?

I've wondered, what is the relative "power" of a photograph. E.g, what is more powerful, a photograph, a movie, or a novel? I suspect that there are limits to the power of a photograph. You've heard people say that a novel changed their life, but you rarely (ever?) hear that about a photograph.

I think there are still powerful photographs being produced, however it's hard to recognize them when you see them.

 

[Bob Michaels]

My personal opinion is that the primary purpose of any photo is to communicate some message. Now the term "communicate some message" should be very broadly defined. It can be to show the beauty of some natural setting, record some event, or portray some individual. But if a photo does not have the goal of communication, it has no reason to exist.

Therefore all photos "say something". Or at least they should attempt to do so.

 

[bucks11]

I personally like photographs that leave me guessing....but it's always nice when they have a story to tell.

 

[photogdave]

I should clarify my point a bit. Photography, lie all art, should be open to interpretation. If a viewer sees or feels something that the photographer didn't, or didn't intend to convey, that is cool too.
I don't make a photo for no reason at all but sometimes I don't know why I've shot something until after I see it processed. A message or thought may, or may not, become clear.
Hmm...I think I'm confusing myself. What's in this green tea?!

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Richard, I agree. But what I'm wondering is can photography communicate "on purpose" like words? You can certainly get all kinds of stories if you stand in the spillway at flickr and let 3,000 photos a minute wash over you. But can we communicate with photos on the level of ideas like writers can with words?

 

[maddoc]

For me every single photo contains a story but only few photos tell an interesting story. Same with essays, to many are written by somebody having excellent language skills but the stories are boring while some lack good language but tell an interesting story...

The photos that tell me an interesting story are these where the photographer has some interest into the subject being photographed and not necessarily the technical perfect ones ...

Just my two cents of course ...🙂

 

[MartinL]

I like photos that evoke a narrative. Usually a piece of a story in which I (the viewer) supply the meaningful content. I like the photo for what it does to me, not for what it says to me--and if it "says" it too loudly, I back off.

IMO a great photo is likely to evoke "similar" responses among many viewers. I don't discount individual differences, but art tends to draw out commonalities. Especially when people can talk things over and learn from one another, they have corresponding responses to great photos.
Martin

 

[Bob Michaels]

I have a photo friend that recently took a creative writing course. He said it was as beneficial to his photography as any photo course he took, both being communication methods.

 

[Merkin]

Richard, I agree. But what I'm wondering is can photography communicate "on purpose" like words? You can certainly get all kinds of stories if you stand in the spillway at flickr and let 3,000 photos a minute wash over you. But can we communicate with photos on the level of ideas like writers can with words?

I would argue that yes, photographs are capable of communicating on the same or similar level as the written word, although certainly not all do. A prime example of this would be war photography. Even though there have been enough books written on wars of the last century to fill many libraries, and countless newspapers and magazines have written countless articles on wars in the last century, the images from those wars remain much more iconic, and in a lot of ways, more communicative to us than the written word. The anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima was the other day, and I guarantee that it would not get the press coverage it continues to get to this day without Joe Rosenthal's photograph.

On the other hand, some photos (certain works by Man Ray and Jerry Uelsmann come to mind) are more akin to Kandinskys and Mondrians than your typical street/landscape/portrait photographs. The more abstract photos speak more to an individual individually than try to tell any sort of definite story. They are sort of the poetry to documentary/photojournalism's prose.

 

[jmg1911]

For me, photography is strictly a visual medium. That doesn't preclude a "message," but it ought rightly to preclude verbal messages. Art and propaganda make uneasy bedfellows. For one thing, propaganda is rather short on ambiguity and ambiguity is the soul of art. (IMO) Take W Eugene Smith's photoessay on the Japanese fishing village poisioned by toxic waste dumping (can't for the life of me call up the name Mishimi?) Anyhow, the total Life magazine article was propaganda, or news, if you like. But Smith was an artist, so the photographs did not tell a verbal story or exhort any action - that was left to the text. Smith's photographs showed us humans under stress. Surely there is a message there. Its just not verbal.
All pontificating about art aside, if the photographer's aim is propaganda, its fine by me. I'm just not as interested.

 

[Al Kaplan]

The same photo can say many different things and be used to illustrate many different themes. For a couple of years a friend and I sort of made a game of it on my blog http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com . He had bunches of my photos of all kinds of subjects, some recent and some dating back as far as the early sixties. Every evening he'd post one. I'd go on line about 10 PM and write a three or so paragraph story to go with the picture. Most times the problem was picking WHICH story that came to mind. Write about the subject in the photo? Where it was taken? why I tok it. How it related to the time period when it was taken? What discussions I'd had with the editor both before and after the shoot? Why was that frame chosen while a similar one wasn't. As soon as text accompaies a photo, regardless of what the text says, it influences the meaning of the photo. Likewise, the image affects our perception of the the story.

A single uncaptioned photo has to stand on its own, but most of them are just nice photos without really "telling" a story.

 

[hitmanh]

Should a photo have something to say in the same way a written essay does? We play with light, shapes, composition. We look at shadow density, bokeh, highlights, sharpness. We say, "man, that's a great photo!"

But is there a visual language that we can make of photos to tell a tale, explain events, parse complex ideas? To see beyond the "object" we hold in our hands to to the story, or concept or idea that object frames?

I guess I'm asking if photography, because of its ubiquity, is any longer able to communicate, or have our photos become abstract constructs, pictures in an exhibition, quickly evaluated and discarded. Can we shoot essays that communicate as effectively as words? Or perhaps photography was never able to do so.

Any ideas?

All photographs having something to say... generally most aren't worth listening to though.

 

[Chris101]

I would argue, politely of course, that all communication is verbal. Not necessarily with the spoken word, but through the use of words. We think using words. Look at any image and think about your response to it. It's in words. ...

Not necessarily. A photograph could be used to 'answer' the ideas presented in another picture

 

[bmattock]

Photos should be seen and not heard.

 

[uhligfd]

"Should" is so restrictive. How about a simply beautiful picture, a beautiful guitar piece? Art is not politics.

A picture or a song may have something to say, but it may not.

Just keep your "shoulds" and subsequent judgements to yourself. A pic or a song can be anything and should not conform to any social/political agenda necessarily. It may have a message or agenda, though. But so what?

A picture or a song or a tale should be good. Or it will be forgotten. No doubt about that!

 

[nico]

...But can we communicate with photos on the level of ideas like writers can with words?

I, for one, think so: I've always thought that some photographers communicate as journalists do, some as novelists and some as poets. Then lots of people like to "write" a personal diary with family photos.

 

[Tuolumne]

Well, they should have something to show!

/T