What information should (always/never) accompany image posts?

[NancyP]

The photographer doesn't have to post anything other than the image, however, I welcome whatever information people care to provide for the image. The technical details, at least format and lens, preferably f stop and shutter speed, film type, developer type, can be helpful to beginners. If some exotic means of development was used, details of that would be worthwhile too. If there was an interesting screw-up, post it to the "oops" thread.

Aside from whatever technical info the photographer provides, a title, an approximate location (if landscape/architecture ), any reason why you wanted to get this image and show it to us - it's all good. If you want to play the "what is it" game with abstracts, that's fun too.

[ROL]

Regarding location info, that is normally included in my titles themselves, as except in rare circumstances I prefer not to engage in creative titling. Any further relevant location info is almost always addressed in the text posting – in fact, usually the main reason for posting an image at all. Any other circumstantial information can be traced back to the source of an image, my website galleries or books, where most images have brief descriptions, sans technical info.

However, one case surfaced a number of years back when a couple of members on this forum feigned appreciation of my work in order to get me to "divulge" a precise location of a photograph, ferreted out from my site. The locale was entirely unhidden, known to many and so easily visible from any normal vantage that I thought the request fairly odd. I'm not into keeping secrets, and this certainly wasn't one, but I was offended by their ingenuous tactics. I examined their site, found that they appeared to be copyists of well known photographs. I pretty much gave them everything any minimally curious photographer with any degree of artistic bent needed to find the spot so that they could use my tripod holes, except GPS coordinates, which I didn't have. Given the nature of their work, I felt I was doing them a service by allowing them the thrill of discovery, by encouraging them to work for the last 5% to make their wishes come true. Sad to say, I don't believe they ever got the point, or appreciated those who do.

[Darin Boville]

However, one case surfaced a number of years back when a couple of members on this forum feigned appreciation of my work in order to get me to "divulge" a precise location of a photograph, ferreted out from my site.

Multiple members of this site went to your personal web site and, either independently or in cahoots, decided to trick you into revealing the secret of your photographic locations?

Huh.

--Darin

[ROL]

Multipel members of this site went to your personal web site and, either independently or in cahoots, decided to trick you into revealing the secret of your photographic locations?

Huh.

--Darin

Their site. One (a) photo location. As in my post. I thought my description of the event was specific and accurate enough – or would you like GPS coordinates (and a spell checker)?

[Bob Sawin]

I am fairly new to large format photography and find information accompanying a photo to be helpful. I think lens, film, format and location info would be a good "minimum". Processing info is helpful as well, especially if any special techniques were used.

[Vaughn]

My photographic life has always had an educational element to it, so I tend to err towards too much info rather than too little. It is easier to ignore excess information than it is to imagine what was left out.

[Colin Robertson]

Written information should offer the viewer of the photograph some additional benefit.
I post work on another forum in a variety of formats and a few different films. Since film/format can specifically influence the look of the image, and the members vary hugely in experience and knowledge, I will include technical details. Pretty much the essentials- Format, Film, dev and if the print was toned.
I don't get into dilution, temp, agitation . . . If someone wants to know they'll ask, and nobody ever has.
More interesting can be the extra dimension which comes from knowing about content. For example, does knowing the background to THIS
http://natedsanders.com/blog/wp-cont...FK-funeral.jpg
Influence how we feel about it?
Here's a trick one since most of the users on this forum as US based. Popular, smiling celeb (a radio DJ, and tireless worker for charity) meets happy teen fan.
http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/u...A-14859267.jpg
These days this photograph comes with completely new information attached. I'll put it in a new post later for those who don't know who this is, and see if supporting information can change a picture.

[Jac@stafford.net]

A two-tier statement appeals to me. The first could the the artists/photographers impression or rationale which might, or not, relate to his other works. The very least significant would be the technical stuff

[Maris Rusis]

A bare picture unsupported by background information is at best entertainment for the eye. It is like chewing gum for the teeth: engages but does not nourish. The viewer of such a picture is limited to the thoughts they already carry in their heads. To go beyond this, to perhaps open new doors of perception, the appreciation of a photograph can be enhanced by descriptive words, lots of words.

First a picture. It's a screen-looker depicting a photograph I made last year:

Lake Jindabyne, Drowned Trees

Gelatin-silver photograph on Ultrafine Silver Eagle VC FB photographic paper, image size 16.3cm X 21.3cm, from a 4x5 Arista EDU Ultra 400 negative exposed in a Tachihara 45GF double extension field view camera fitted with a Schneider Super Angulon 75mm f5.6 lens and #25 red filter.Titled and signed recto, stamped verso.


The thing intended to be present here is not the screen-looker, an artifact of the internet, but the photograph behind it; a real thing. The word "image" for a photograph is dubious usage. An image is any representation of anything in any form. Even poets traffic in images via simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, and so on. The hazard of muddling photographs and images is that eventually the image on a monitor screen will, in the minds of some people, become indistinguishable from a photograph. Don't tell me this does not already happen!

The catalogue descriptions under my pictures are intended to affirm their physical reality. This form of words is offered as a contradiction to the millions of people in possession of millions of electronic files who say they have photographs and eventually come to believe they have photographs. The bluntest description of any picture starts off by saying what medium is on what substrate. My photographs are gelatin-silver emulsion on fibre base so that's what I say.

It seems to be be becoming odd that a photograph has size. No, not so many kilobytes or megabytes, that's a data file size, but actual centimetres of long measure. I put vertical dimension first and horizontal second. It's the international standard for art objects.

For those who think the surface of a picture is everything, that "looks like" incorporates the sum of "all there is", art theory affords a long history of formal analysis. It's amazing how an inspection of line, form, tone, mass, composition, etc can tweak the eye just like an elaborate Rorschach ink-blot. I go the other way. By declaring the physicality of the photograph, the reality of the work flow that made it, and its connection to real-world subject matter I try to offer entertainment for the mind not just retinal massage for the eye. The work flow is all mine. No part of it is down to hired minions in some workshop, somewhere, labouring to flatter my skills so I will feel good about paying their fee.

Putting a title on a photograph is important. The title is not an explanation or an anodyne for ambiguity. A caption can do that if needed. Rather a title distinguishes one photograph from another and gives each work its individuality.

Signing a photograph is also signing-off on it. There may be an element of moral courage in affixing one's name to an art-work. Everyone will know who the perpetrator is and acclaim or opprobrium will fall squarely where it is deserved. Think of the opposite: students or dilettantes who bring folios of photographs for critique or benediction and start by apologising for them. A photograph announced with an apology does not deserve to be shown or signed. Signatures can be forged but I'm the only one with my unique stamp so it goes on the back of every photograph I'm prepared to answer for.

Ok, I'll accept some descriptive data could be superfluous. For example the actual photograph Lake Jindabyne, Drowned Trees weighs 15.75g and is 0.3mm thick but including that data in the description is maybe going too far; even for me.

[Darin Boville]

A bare picture unsupported by background information is at best entertainment for the eye. It is like chewing gum for the teeth: engages but does not nourish. The viewer of such a picture is limited to the thoughts they already carry in their heads. To go beyond this, to perhaps open new doors of perception, the appreciation of a photograph can be enhanced by descriptive words, lots of words.

First a picture. It's a screen-looker depicting a photograph I made last year:

Lake Jindabyne, Drowned Trees

Gelatin-silver photograph on Ultrafine Silver Eagle VC FB photographic paper, image size 16.3cm X 21.3cm, from a 4x5 Arista EDU Ultra 400 negative exposed in a Tachihara 45GF double extension field view camera fitted with a Schneider Super Angulon 75mm f5.6 lens and #25 red filter.Titled and signed recto, stamped verso.

Hey Maris,

I'm not seeing it the same way. Maybe its it marginally useful to know that we are looking at a "screen looker" (and I'm not sure i want to go even that far) vs an actual print but the rest seems like a lot of noise. Look at the title--it sounds more than a little like you are curating your own work--mimicking the style of museum labels. The added value of all of this, in terms of reminding viewer's of the image's physicality, individuality, and the photographer's "moral courage," seems dubious. In fact, for me, it diminishes the image, suggesting you are in the advanced stages of Ansel-ape-ism and have nothing new to offer other than homage and eye-candy.

--Darin