Image and Text (ITAP Critical Commentry)

Integrating Theory and Practice: Image and text

(Level 4) Lecture 8

Last week I had a lecture on image and text, it was basically talking about how photographer uses text on their photos to express emotions or text could be used to describe the image. To name examples of good photographers who use text in their work are Gillian Wearing, Rene Magritte, Jim Goldberg, Barbara Kruger and John Heartfield. When observing each of these photographers work more thoroughly I noticed that without the text the message the photographer is sending might not come through as best as it can with text. Today I will write about how ‘how text can influence our emotions’ and ‘how text can be added to change the context of an image.
How text can influence our emotions

John Heartfield

John Heartfield is best known for his photomontages of Hitler. Hitler came to power in 1933 then John Heartfield was forced to leave the country. His work photos show photomontage with a political message. Below is one example of his photomontages. It shows Hitler sharpening his knife to kill a chicken. However the title is ‘don’t be afraid Hitler is a vegetarian’ so it’s ironic and to the left is the Heartfield. This image was for a magazine, at the bottom of the photo I can see the text and it is describing the photo.  

Artist: John Heartfield -‘Don’t be afraid Hitler is a vegetarian’

My work from a photography project

Below is an example where I used photomontage and text for a project that I done last year. The image is to show the transition to basic materials to mechanical or how time has change throughout the years of architecture. Before starting my work I had to find examples of artists in the past who used photomontage, this was when I came across John Heartfield, other photographers I looked at was Hannah Hoch and Raoul Hausmann. At that time when producing the work I knew a little of how to use Photoshop however by looking back at my work now there are a few things to improve on one being to handwrite the text to make it feel personal and to connect with the audience.  

Artist: Kawsar Ahmed

How text can be added to change the context of an image

Example 1:

                                                       

        

This is an example of how text can be added to change the context of a photo. When first looking at the photograph without the text I wanted to know the background of these kids and why the photographer chosen to take this particular image. I later found the poster which is presented to the right above. This made it clear to me that the kids where from Cambodia and suffering from poverty and injustice there are more information about life in Cambodia as a child below the heading of poster. The poster was to inform the audience that there was an photography exhibition to raise money for the children of Cambodia.   

Written by Kawsar Ahmed

*Image: both from Google Images