Titling the photos

[Phantomas]

How do you go about it? Are titles for photos important or should they be completely left out? Do you prefer descriptive titles or abstract/creative?
I think this has been a difficult subject for me. I do not title my photos much, partly out of laziness, partly out of lack of creativity. I mostly name them by location. However, I also found that I enjoy descriptions of photos, particularly factual titles. This topic was brought about by going through Arbus' Aperture book this morning and reading titles like "A young man and his girlfriend with hotdogs in the park, NYC", the photo showing just that 🙂
But everytime I tried to title my photos like that they seemed too banal, silly, unnecessary.
Regardless, photo itself should speak volumes, but I found it a comfortable practice to look at photos first, form impression, and then look at the title/description.

 

[Bob Michaels]

It appears there is no universal consistency or standard. I too have seen everything from nothing or a simple geographic location to descriptions to several lengthy paragraphs of text that combine with the photos to tell a more complex story.

Everyone agrees that the more the photo can stand on it's own without text, the better. Sometimes the text is helpful, even essential not because of any problems with the photo but from the complexity of the desired message.

 

[gb hill]

The main reason I title photo's here on RFF is to avoid seeing the series of numbers that appear under my uploaded photo. Flickr at least one can edit them out. Here I don't think you can.

 

[shadowfox]

Titling photos is a fun mental exercise for me.
Never over analyze and don't forget to have fun.

"Secret Admirer"

 

[DSkjaeve]

I prefer not to name them. If I need to name them for a reason I use the city/country and year.

 

[clayne]

Titles work for singleton photos intermixed amongst a bunch of other photographs from different series, times, etc. but I find that titles make less sense with smaller collections of intra-related photos. The problem is that the current presentation mechanisms on the web aren't really oriented towards other more effective methods of presentation in the real-world - where one can use a single title/description for multiple prints.