Mark's Captioning Manifesto (was Re: [Leica] Aaron's PAW19: Relief)

[aaron.sandler at duke.edu (Aaron Sandler)]

Mark,

(Please forgive me if I don't respond in verse...I regret that I have 
nothing that even approaches your ability with words.)

A dilemma indeed...perhaps depending on one's goal: to have fun, to show a 
great photo, or to tell a story (particularly if one has failed to fully 
tell it with the photo).  I will freely admit that I felt the story had 
some merit but wasn't clear from the photo (which I find nice but perhaps 
not strong enough to stand on its own).

Plus, I find that I get more responses to PAWs where I include a little 
story than to ones where I don't.  :)

Nevertheless, I feel your pain...I can promise I will take this perspective 
into consideration in the future.  And when I manage to make a photo that I 
feel is strong enough to stand on its own, I'll try to let it do so...no 
easier a task than the mother bird has nudging the fledgling out of the 
nest, but perhaps no less necessary.

Thank you for the manifesto,
Aaron

Mark Rabiner wrote:
>To caption, or not to caption: that is the question:
>Whether 'this nobler to spell it all out leaving nothing to the imagination.
>Or let them sit there dumbfounded, not having a clue.
>
>I thought the other day I should get a digital tape recorder so I can record
>where my head was at when I took the shot.
>But then why not just do that and skip the photo altogether?
>They say being deaf is far worse than being blind.
>Why not record sounds instead of pictures?
>Make sound collages.
>
>But put stuff in like "print this real low key" otherwise I'd just lighten
>it up like a dumb machine print printer every time.
>"put dark rock at III"
>"print it dark stupid"
>
>Dorothy Lange or someone lately I was reading though thought you need to do
>some serious writing with every right off the bat shot or your not doing it
>and I thought there was something to that. I should try doing that. Might
>have even been Dianne Arbus!
>Click shutter, wind camera, write stuff.
>
>I like to see the photo coming first.
>I'm less of a photo journalist kind of guy.. A writer who takes pictures.
>I've done a little of that. I had my pad with me. Got all the names.
>
>In a sense like this it's more of a travelogue kind of thing.
>The photo is almost like clip art.
>It's like you'd grab it from anywhere you can.
>A big help in illustrating the caption though.
>
>"Here's the copy now where can we get a shot?"
>
>The picture should say a thousand words.
>Not twenty at the bottom doing it for you.
>That's my manifesto for the evening.
>
>It's like the best images in your mind are the stories you heard on the
>radio.
>
>I do have fun putting weird photo's in emails though. Just sliding them
>right in there. Ones I shot or ones I get from Google-image. I love getting
>that big contact sheet from the world up with the Google-image.
>So many pictures in the world.
>I just read that's why the Surrealists liked photography.
>Because it was no big deal. Still images raining like confetti from
>everywhere and anyone could do them.
>That's why Breton liked them.
>That's why photos were "marvelous".
>
>I think "marvelous" might have meant "fun" sometimes.
>
>
>Mark Rabiner
>Photography
>Portland Oregon
>http://rabinergroup.com/