A photo’s worth 1,000 words? WPP discussion
Written by Ciara LeemingRemember Bibi Aisha, the Afghan woman whose Jodie Bieber portrait was put on the front of Time Magazine along with a controversial jingoistic strapline?
Well, the whys and wherefores about how other people’s words are used to contextualise photographers’ images will be considered at a World Press Photo discussion later this month.
Anyway, here is the blurb:
Tickets are free of charge but there are only about 150 places so you need to book at this link
Discussion (1 Comment)
Timely discussion I think.
In the absence of the words of the author an image can take on a life of its own, but of course we all know that and its an accepted part of the game of photography.
To quote that great pj Nick Nolte in ‘Under Fire’ …”I dont take sides I just take pictures” – aye fine Nick, but editors quite often express a preference for a particular angle and may just use your image to underline that.
With that fact in mind I’d suggest that adding a caption should be thought of in exactly the same way as adding a © copyright symbol. Just as you do not want your work ‘stolen’ neither should you want the ‘reality’ of an image misinterpreted. Ok of course it can be done without your knowledge, but having the discipline to accurately describe the content may be useful some time down the road when you get pulled up for ‘misrepresentation’ (or worse) and can fall back on the accuracy of your original description as supplied with your work.
As an aside but somewhat related and worth considering if you’re not already in this mindset – a well known picture library which starts with A and ends in Y actually treats the keyword ‘sets’ and text strings applied to contributors images as copyright material. When you think about it, it makes sense – the particular way you describe your work is precisely what gets it ‘found’ in the morass of images that are floating about.
What had been happening was that smart contributors were taking the time to add latin names, useful slang terms, and a variety of regional spellings (ie colour/color)to get their work more easily/creatively found, which takes research, intelligence and forethought, but unscrupulous contributors with similar material could simply do a search for like images and then simply cut and paste the keywords from others work onto theirs. Hey presto instant findability, max value, min effort.
But not any more because now A***Y allow you to ‘show’ publicly some keywords/text which you select to be visible, but allow you to ‘hide’ others which you dont wish to be publicly visible. Basically ALL keywords are searchable, but only selected keywords are visible, so you’d have to think of a specific keyword yourself to be able to abstract out a particular image that carried it. Smart.
In this rapidly developing digital age you have to realize that its not only the images you make that have ‘intellectual property’ value for you, but also the captions you use to describe those images, and the keywords that go along for the ride. Value is in all sorts of places!
Anyone who goes to this event can you post back a comment or two please?