Man I hate titling photos.
I have two photos that I want to put in the faculty staff show, but I can’t seem to come up with titles for them (and no, I’m not going to post the photos here and ask for examples, that’s just begging for abuse).
The main thing is, I believe myself to be a pretty witty, and somewhat cynical person, so to title photos, I’m always tempted to do something a little tongue-in-cheek. I’m afraid, however, that a tongue-in-cheek title will somehow detract from the strength of the photo. Titling them “Untitled” is just a cop out, but it seems like the wrong title can do a photo severe injustice. I would prefer the title do nothing to the photo, simply be a tag to identify the photo with, but again, I don’t want use a simple descriptive title like “White Bread and White Cell Phone.”
Its just so frustrating. I put so much effort into making the photo as good as possible, I don’t want to just casually attach some moniker to the photo that just sounds like I flippantly referred to the photo like it was some kind of snapshot.
It shouldn’t be this hard, but it is.
4 replies on “Titling Photos”
“I would prefer the title do nothing to the photo, simply be a tag to identify the photo with, but again, I don’t want use a simple descriptive title …”
Sounds like you’re describing a number. [Typically a number would add no emotional component to a photograph, although some numbers might: “1984” “451” “4-20”]
Well, I did resolve to go with simple descriptive titles, for now.
thinking about this i was reminded of prince, who didn’t want to be categorized by a word and became a symbol. but upon finding that neither he nor anyone else could pronounce or remember his symbol, transmogrified once again into … ta da … prince.
Hey you misunderstood artist, you have to build up some artistic angst so you won’t burn bright and fade away, haha. Seriously, titling stuff is the suckiest part of it all. Good luck! (Hint: don’t label anything Stinky Crotch!)