I recently entered some photos in the Intermountain Professional Photographers Association (IPPA) annual contest.  It’s nice to have your work seen. It is even nicer when your peers recognize your work and give you feedback.  The judging for this competition all takes place on a single day.  Members of the organization gather to watch the proceedings. Judges who have been trained in the art of judging (it is an art, and it is judgmental) view photos on their own screens during what is essentially a shared screen conference.  The person managing the judging displays photos one at a time and reads the title of the photo.  Nothing else.  No further descriptions are shared.  The judges rate the photos and provide commentary about their scores.  Judges can challenge each other and they discuss the merits of their arguments.  Sometimes the discussion results in a higher score, other times in a lower one. 

In the case of one of my photos, it was a photo of  a stand of trees in the mist at Yellowstone National Park called the “Bobby Socks Trees,” so named because the dead lodgepole pine trees are in a geyser basin, and the dead trees soak up the silica-rich water turning the lower portion of the trees white, hence their name. And that is what I named the photo.  I admit it was not a particularly imaginative name.

One of the judges remarked that he did not understand the name and since the name contributed little to the presentation, it was scored lower, thus removing it from a “Merit” category.

On the other hand, the same photo won “Best in Show” at the Utah State Fair.  When the State Fair judges look at photographs, they are not told the name of the photo until after they have judged it.   

So, I ask, what is in a name?

I should know better, I have experience at this sort of thing, lots of it.  Lately I have not been giving much thought to the titles of my photos, normally a location tag has worked for me as a name to identify the sense of place.  Clearly not enough.

Back in the day…when I worked for the Associated Press when AP photography was totally an analog process (film to print to analog transmission), photographers learned the importance of not only concise captions, but also how a textual description that was part of the caption could “sell” a photo to editors that only have a few moments to make their photo selection on deadline.

In my AP example, a typical caption (that was actually affixed to the image itself; we called them “lick ‘em and stick ‘em” captions) had several parts.  The site code that included the site code (where the photo originated), the dateline (the date of transmission and the city, state and country of where the image was made) and over-line  (sometimes called a Kicker) in all CAPS (sometimes more of a headline, but sometimes something clever to attract attention). This was followed by the caption, now referred to as the description in the world of Photoshop.  A good caption would include a concise description of what was going on in the photo, the basic Who, What, When, Where and Why of journalism.  This was usually done in a sentence or two. The caption was followed by what we referred to as “junk lines.”  This included the photo provider, the caption writer’s initials, a string of numbers representing the date and time the caption was written followed by the photographer’s name or initials.

By the way, this information was the forerunner for what would be defined as the IPTC metadata standard that would become part of digital photography, a standard that continues to evolve today. You can see what this has become by looking at Photoshop’s “File Info” menu.

What is important to my story is the over-line I mentioned as being an integral part of an AP caption.  This over-line appeared on the very first AP Photo ever transmitted on December 21, 1934 and was part of standard AP photo caption style until  the early 1990’s when physical prints were replaced by scans from negative scanners and eventually digital cameras. 

I generally liked the over-line, that is until writer’s block took over.  It sometimes was very basic information, like “Air Liner Down in Adirondacks” which is the over-line from that first AP Photo transmission. But a clever over-line often found its way into publication, selling the image to editors that selected content for print and for viewers to peruse. 

HOWEVER,  I recently acquired Ansel Adam’s Examples, the Making of 40 Photographs. I note that the titles of his images could not be more sparse and unimaginative; Moonrise, Mount Williamson, Still Life, Nevada Fall, Church and Road. 

In his introduction to the book, he remarks “Only the print contains the artist’s meaning and message.”  He says that he “will not attempt to describe, analyze or define the creative -emotional motivation of my work, or the work of others.”   The description is the work itself.  It is easy to see why Adam’s descriptions are utilitarian.

Should I be conflicted?  Which is better, sparse titles that do little to enhance the image, or something a bit more descriptive to  perhaps be guide posts to the photographer’s mindset and intent?

I am of mixed mind on this.  I think sometimes it does not hurt to have a little fun with a title. Other times, I would prefer to leave the mystery for the viewer to unmask.  

By the way, if you want to learn more about AP Photos, I came across this nice story from Time Magazine.  It is a bit dated (almost ten years old) and a bit limited, but you may find it interesting.  https://time.com/3650882/associated-press-photowire-80th-anniversary/

In addition to a history of AP Photos, it includes a nice description of how the analog transmission process worked.  Hard to imagine the work that went into making an image and sharing it.  If you want to learn more about IPTC Photo Metadata standards, this is a good place to start…

https://iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/photo-metadata/

Learn the difference between a file name and the object name or title of an image. 

That may be a blog for another day.

Thanks for stopping by.