The words “Convergence” and “Vortex” found in the title of this blog came from reading WJT Mitchels “Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation” (1994) where he argues

..”it is, in a very real sense, an ethics of form imposed on the reader/viewer in the structural division of the photos and text. Our labor as beholders is as divided as that of Agee and Evans, and we find ourselves drawn, as they were, into a vortex of collaboration and resistance” (Thomas, 1994)

It is clear that text, next to, included in or as a forward to an image(s) has the power to completely change the meaning and indeed the category of the genre that it might be assigned to.  In his book ” The Spoken Image” (1999) Clive Scott suggests that

“Photogenres – photojournalism, documentary photography, the family snap, the nude, etc. – may be said to exist, but photographs do not belong to them by any inherent right. Rather, a context is expressly created for the photograph, often and predominantly through language, which itself assigns the photograph to a genre” Scott, C (1999)

While working on this project I wanted the images to stand on their own and tell a story.  Perhaps some of them do, to some extent but of course, they are representations of an event constructed from my memory to try and illicit a similar feeling of an unfolding tragedy. The inclusion of the unique reference number on the image itself moved them into a more formal position and started to help the process of meaning. Adding a title gave a sense of the “crime”. Adding dates made these incidents more real and helped them to be seen as individual stories. Selecting font style for the text was something I hadn’t bargained on becoming an element used to help meaning for the images. What came from all this was a realisation that the meaning was somewhere n the middle between the image and the text and that they were quite equal in what they were providing.

By using text and font that gave a feeling of formality and documentation this was in direct opposition to the traditional idea of landscape “art” and its “picturesque” By also using a title in an “art” form the viewer is left wondering what this is; “document” or “art” The meaning, therefore, falls right in between. The text is as important in the contradiction as the contradiction that lies in the image itself.

The images are neither landscape art nor documentary but both. This is created by the image and the text working together placing the viewer in a “vortex” between the two, while “a meaning” is searched for. In the essay “Fire and Ice” (1989) written by Peter Wollen, he refers to linguistic models for titles and captions.

Bibliography

Scott (1999) The spoken image: Photography and language. London: Reaktion Books.

Thomas, M.W.J. (1994) Picture theory: Essays on verbal and visual representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Available at: htts://thenegativeaffect.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/fire-and-ice-1984.pdf
[Accessed 17/02/2023]