Captioning
by Rob Gray

For the viewer, the meaning of the print is his meaning. If I try to impose mine by intruding descriptive titles, I insult the viewer, the print, and myself.
—Ansel Adams

Many great photographers either didn’t name their photos or gave them purely descriptive titles. The pull quote above makes Ansel Adams’ views fairly clear. Edward Weston did caption his photos, but with names like Eroded Rock, Cow Tree Barn and Pepper #30 I think it’s fair to say that he wasn’t trying to add any meaning to his images.

I have always been of two minds about captioning photographs. On the one hand I think it is possible to indicate to the viewer my thoughts about the image with an appropriate caption. On the other hand, as Adams says, why should I impose my opinions on the viewer. Nevertheless I do caption my photos and believe that the caption should, ideally, add some value. It should at least give the viewer an inkling of what I think about the image.

The photo Tolkien’s Trees is a good example. Why Tolkien’s Trees? Having read ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Lord of The Rings’ several times, I consider myself an avid J R R Tolkien fan. This grotto, with its twisted trees and running brook, just reminded me of Middle Earth. No scene in particular, but I can imagine Gollum in such a place, admiring his ‘Precious’. As soon as I saw the first working print I knew what I would call this image.

This is a good title as an incident in my gallery testifies. One day two girls, around ten years of age, were looking at this photo. One said “You can see why he’s called it Tolkien’s Trees”. The other agreed. If you can strike a chord with a couple of ten-year-olds you’re doing pretty well with the naming of your photos.

I got it right on this occasion, but I admit that I don’t always do so. However the alternative of calling everything "Untitled" is not an option for me.

Sometimes I know what the caption will be the instant I see an image, while at other times I rack my brains for ages trying to think of a good one. It’s not uncommon for the release of an image to be delayed by weeks for lack of a caption. Occasionally I give up and, in despair, call an image Three Rocks and a Trunk or something similar. Normally this is an indication that the image is not one of my best.

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About the Author: The photographer Rob Gray (aka the Feral Fotographer) has been a photographer (either a professional or amateur) since 1971 when he bought his first camera in Panama.

Since then he has photographed just about everything from cheetahs in Africa through disaster victims in Australia to lemon slices in London.

Over the last few years Rob has been holding workshops and teaching at the Canberra School of Photography. He enjoys these activities and hopes to be able to keep them going in some form while travelling. As to exactly how, he's not sure yet but if you need a guest speaker at your camera club give him a call.

Rob is 47, has semi-retired and lives permanently on-the-road looking for images and avoiding real work as much as possible. He photographs the Australian landscape with a 5x4" field camera.

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You can see more of Rob's work at the following websites:
Profotos - Rob Gray
robgray.com