Should Photos Be Entitled Or Not

THE DILEMMA

In the field of pho­tog­ra­phy there is an ever­green dilemma about the appro­pri­ate­ness of the ges­ture of enti­tling the pho­tos. Always when we come across this ques­tion it seems that we are deal­ing with two major oppo­site stand­points: First, which insist on the belief that enti­tling a photo is a nec­es­sairy part of pho­to­graphic process and sec­ond, which insist on the belief that enti­tling a photo is a despotic abo­li­tion of viewer’s free­dom to inter­pret the visual con­tent of the frame.

THE FUNC­TION OF THE TITLE

Before we try to resolve this dilemma, we must some­how reveal the basic func­tion of a title. But before we do that we must agree on the onto­log­i­cal sta­tus of an image, which may some­how be prob­lem­atic to all of those, who believe that photo as a con­tainer of light is real­ity rep­re­sen­ta­tive. As soon as we agree that a photo is a sum of very dif­fer­ent dimen­sions: phys­i­cal, phys­i­o­log­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, cul­tural, polit­i­cal and seman­tic, the def­i­n­i­tion of the func­tion of the title becomes less hazy. Talk­ing about a title of a photo focus us on the seman­tic level of the photo which is cru­cial for its meaning-sense, for its exis­tence as a loqua­cious thing. With­out lan­guage and its cen­tral cat­e­gory i.e. meaning-sense any kind of con­den­sa­tion of the light would be — at least for a human spec­ta­tor — mean­ing­less. To find — this means to pro­duce — the mean­ing of a photo, spec­ta­tor need to apply basic ele­ment of seman­tic order. That is spe­cial kind of weft which assigns spe­cific chain of sig­ni­fiers to a spe­cific amount of light and trans­form it into a loqua­cious entity. We call this weft title. A title is the point of seman­tic unity of the sig­ni­fiers, which cross the record of light and syn­the­size it in the mean­ing­ful total­ity.

TITLE WITH­OUT A TITLE

As we have found out pho­tos with­out titles do not exist. Even when the light con­tain­ing frame does not have a fixed title, each spec­ta­tor needs at least implicit one to change a spe­cific amount of light into some­thing mean­ing­ful. We may accede to sin­gle photo from dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives: his­tor­i­cal, polit­i­cal, social, psy­cho­log­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal etc., but we always need a start­ing point of our inter­pre­ta­tion. It is true that non dis­cur­sive per­cep­tion of a photo may pre­cede the read­ing, but as soon as a spec­ta­tor wants to under­stand the shapes and amount of light in means of sense, title as a pri­mary, lead sig­ni­fier needs to be applied. Titles may change simul­ta­ne­ously, but they always exist. Some­times titles exist just as a hid­den seman­tic crutches, which help us on the intel­lec­tual prom­e­nade through enig­mas of sin­gle cadre of light.

SET­TING A TITLE IS AN ARTIS­TIC RIGHT

Although a pho­tog­ra­pher isn’t the sole author of the photo, he has the right to enti­tle his cap­ture of light. With­out free­dom to enti­tle his pho­tos, pho­tog­ra­pher would be deprived for the basic right of being spec­ta­tor of his own work. Every spec­ta­tor has the right to enti­tle and inter­pret a photo as he likes, and so has a pho­tog­ra­pher. Con­sid­er­ing this con­clu­sions we have found the stand­point which insist on the belief that enti­tling the photo is a despotic abo­li­tion of viewer’s free­dom to inter­pre­tate the visual con­tent of the frame non-pertinent. Besides the photographer’s right to fix the pos­si­ble read­ings of the cap­tured light with the title, every spec­ta­tor — even a pho­tog­ra­pher him­self — has the right to reject any kind of seman­tic prej­u­dices, which would limit his pos­si­ble interpretation.

THE TRUE DECEP­TION OF THE TITLES

We have seen that pho­tos with­out titles are mean­ing­less. More­over, with­out titles, i.e. pri­mor­dial sig­ni­fiers, pho­tos as inde­pen­dent seman­tic enti­ties do not exist. We believe that pho­tos con­tain mean­ing, sense or mes­sage, but this is just the decep­tive effect of titles, which pre­cede our con­cep­tion of the world. Pho­tos as we com­pre­hend them are words-things, both at the same time. Pho­tog­ra­phy is word and the thing simul­ta­ne­ously. Light as it is recorded in a frame is mean­ing­less. With its basic matrix of oppo­si­tions it is just sub­tile fibre on which dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of lan­guage stick. Nev­er­the­less, we may wish to treat pho­tos as mere phys­i­cal objects, but they always echoe our lin­guis­tic pro­duc­tion of the world.