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civilized ku # 273 ~ words + pictures

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3 vases at the Jay Craft Gallery ~ Jay, NY • click to embiggen
How much would it change your perceptions / feelings about this picture if I changed the title / description to a more complete and accurate description?:

3 vases and an intellectually disabled child on porch swing at the Jay Craft Gallery

Is the picture without the words a "failure" as the pictures-that-need-words-are-failures crowd would have you believe?

Posted on Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:43AM by Registered Commentergravitas et nugalis in | Comments8 Comments

Reader Comments (8)

The words add nothing. They just sound pretentious

November 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterFrank

No words are needed. Recently I stopped putting titles on my images, I may say where it was made and by either me or my wife but that is it.

November 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDon

I'm not sure what the words have to do with the picture. To me the picture is three vases with some stuff, and two people in the background. The person referred to in the words is hardly visible, and seems like they are in the frame by coincidence and not really part of the composition. It looks like a disconnect to me, at best, with or without words.

November 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterScott

That title would make me feel like I had a ring in my nose and was being painfully pulled along in a direction I don't want to be going in. Let me steer myself thank you.

November 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMary Dennis

It did change my perception. I hadn't noticed the child outside and what under the impression that the woman was looking in or about to look in the window.

Cheers,
Andre

November 23, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterandre

To me the picture is saying something about the passing tourist trade.

The suggested caption is certainly more "precise" but not particularly "accurate" in my view.

November 24, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSven W

How about "Boy on the swing"? I certainly missed him at first glance.

November 24, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDennis Allshouse

I believe in words. In this particular image they make the difference that was already mentioned, they let me discover the boy, but other than that, it's the kind of title that I don't like.

What I do like, are titles that point to a paradox, a contradiction, that lead me into a trap, vague titles that don't really reveal anything, often rather to the contrary. Surreal titles, one could say.

November 27, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAndreas Manessinger

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