Mobile Photography – Tip Of The Day – Number 15
Welcome to another brand new section from your favourite mobile photography website and one of the most popular in the world. Today, we’re publishing our fifteenth Mobile Photography/Art Tip Of The Day to our brand new section of the site.
Every day we will publish a short quick tip to help you with your mobile photography, this may be related to editing your image, capturing your image, printing your image, all manner of things, across the complete photographic and art mobile genre – we’ll be featuring great mobile street photography tips, great blending tips, great cloning tips, we will cover it all from some of the greatest mobile photographers and artists in the world. We’ll also have a widget in our right hand column, displaying the Tip of The Day every day, just click on that and you will be taken to our tip of the Day archive.
We are delighted to publish our fifteenth Tip Of The Day today with a very key one from Janine Graf. Janine is one of our wonderful columnists and runs iSights, if you haven’t visited that, then we strongly suggest you do so, it’s really fabulous, go here. We have also featured Janine in many of our Flickr Group Showcases and we have published many interviews and photo app articles with her too – please go here to view her archive.
Over to you Janine (forward by Joanne Carter)…
The Importance of Image Titles
©Janine Graf
‘I guess this isn’t so much a tip as it is a suggestion . . . a “suggestion of the day”? In my humble opinion, giving your image a title is equally as important as creating the darn thing. It honestly boggles my mind that someone could pour their heart and soul into creating a piece of art, hopefully one that conveys a bit of a story, only to stop short of the finish line by leaving it untitled. I see time and time again beautiful imagery simply titled “untitled”. Why?
Take for example my image, “She Was Always Late to the Party”. If left untitled, would it be received by the viewer in the manner of which I intended? Would anyone get it? Viewer: “I see a rhino flying in the air and lots of balloons in the distance . . . I don’t get it.” Me: “But she was LATE to the party . . . the balloons up and left without her.” Viewer: “Ah, now that makes sense . . . it’s totally stupid but it makes sense!”
Most of the time when I’m creating an image, I have the title already predetermined; the chicken before the egg methodology. In times when a title isn’t so easy flowing, I’ll often go with song lyrics that fit both my mood and finished image. Using song lyrics is a great way to cheat a title!
So my fellow artists, I beg you, take that one last step and name your images. It really does make a difference’.
Janine Graf
Janine’s mobile photography has been exhibited in art galleries across the United States and in Europe, has been featured on various websites and in publication. She is currently a proud member of the traveling iPad photography exhibit called “Light Impressions” along with 40 very talented mobile photographers. In publishing news, Janine was honored and delighted to have participated in an upcoming book about creating surreal digital photography. This book is set to be released in the spring of 2013 by Ilex Press. Janine is a mobile photographer who enjoys belly dancing, bacon cheeseburgers, cappuccinos, the smell of old books, slapstick comedy, the color orange and movies about gladiators. Since discovering mobile photography in the early fall of 2010, Janine has set aside her professional DSLR and desktop editing programs in favor of the iPhone and its myriad of wonderful editing apps. In regards to subject matter, she tends to gravitate towards subjects that allow for a whimsy feeling or vibe; she likes to have fun!
19 Comments
kachouro
Full ack, Janine!
Janine Graf
Ack! 😀
David
You are so right! Titles are most necessary….good tip!!
Janine Graf
Thanks David! Your titles are always great btw!
Lola Mitchell
You are so right! I so suck at it. probably because english is not my native language. Maybe I should start titling them in french. : )
Janine Graf
Ooh ooh you should do that Lola!
stephen
if a photo is worth a thousand words then why is a title necessary. my intention is to engage the viewer and let them discover their own meaning. for me, adding a title limits the way my photos are experienced, therefore i disagree.
Janine Graf
In theory, yes, a photo should speak a thousand words. Sometimes, however, they do not, at least that’s my observation / opinion. It just seems unfinished to me, to be left untitled. I just loves me a good title. I’d love to see your work Stephen, do you have a link to a gallery you can share?
Janine Graf
Thank you Joanne for the opportunity to share a tip / suggestion! 😀
Fabio D'Andrea
I totally agree with you my SciFi sister Janine!! It’s always a pain for me giving my images a title and the most of the times my titles suck. I’m glad that you go with song titles and lyrics, this is exactly what I often do. 🙂
Janine Graf
What?! Your title names certainly do not suck my SciFi brother! “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” ;-D
Kevin Kuster
Janine great insight and suggestion.
Janine Graf
Thank you so much Kevin, I’m glad you liked it! 😀
Carlos
Back in art school we were told “untitled” is a title….food for thought.
Janine Graf
Well . . . how about we look at leaving something untitled from a cataloging perspective. In this electronic age, especially an artist who wants to be exposed (I don’t know about you, but I love exposure), wouldn’t everyone want to make it easier for their work to be found? I have an image on Flickr titled, “Patience is the Art of Hoping” and I will tell you that image has received so many hits, from Google alone, due to the title. It’s all about the metadata. That’s just from a technical standpoint. From an artistic standpoint, it’s just my humble opinion that the piece seems unfinished if left untitled; a fitting title can really make an already beautiful image even more provocative, but hey, that’s just me. 🙂
Thanks for your comment Carlos, this is a great debate! 😀
Alon Goldsmith
I agree with you bathtub sista. I get as many comments about my titles as I do about my pics. Err — is that a good thing?!
Janine Graf
Yay! I’m glad you agree Alon! I experience the same reaction with my titles . . . golly, I dunno, is that a good thing? Let’s assume it’s all good. ;-D
Dog sitter
I agree. Thinking of a cool title is large fun.
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