Because titling a photo is the hardest part of the entire damn process…
I’m trying to come up with a title for one of my fine art photos. As such, I’d like to get first impressions/reactions to the following phrases. I’d like both in terms of the imagery and mood it conjures, and how well you feel it rolls off the tongue.
[ul]
[li]Urban Mythos[/li][li]Gritty Fantasia[/li][li]Urban Fancy[/li][/ul]
Thanks!
[ul]
[li]Urban Mythos - “Snopes meets Cthulhu”[/li][li]Gritty Fantasia - “Tarantino does dancing brooms”[/li][li]Urban Fancy - “Not that there’s anything wrong with that”[/li][/ul]
I’m joking, but not by much. Your titles seem pretty heavy-handed. What would they add that “Untitled” and letting the viewer make up their own opinions doesn’t provide?
I’m not much of a wordsmith, but I hope you won’t mind hearing my opinions about the titles.
Urban Fancy sounds like a magazine linked with Cat Fancy- and the “-ban Fan” set of syllables doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue. I don’t like it.
Urban Mythos reminds me of urban legends (not so good) but it also draws up images of “Neverwhere,” “The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad,” and “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town”- the juxtaposition of modern city and ancient story. Had you not followed it up with Gritty Fantasia, this would be my favorite.
And Gritty Fantasia is my favorite. It makes me think of a little girl in a sparkly tutu dancing happily in front of a crumbling cityscape- in black and white, of course. The girl has a smudge of dirt and at least one skinned joint (elbow or knee) but she thinks she’s a perfect ballerina. Tongue-rolling quality: I like the combination of the mostly hard-sounding “gritty” with the more lyrical “fantasia.”
Uban Mythos: I really like this. It conjures up a fantasy image with a harsh backdrop. And it’s quite a clever pun.
Gritty Fantasia: similar but not as clever. And gritty also has connotations of its literal meaning, which sounds a little irritating.
Urban Fancy: sounds like a cupcake that’s been dropped in the gutter.
How about instead of “Urban Mythos” you try “Urban Fable”? “Mythos” is too close to “myth”, while “fable” is a bit more whimsical (if that’s what you’re after).
And instead of “Gritty Fantasia”, I’d go with"Grim Fantasia", if only because “grim” is cooler. Of course, if you want to go all out, you can try “Gutter Fantasia.”
How can this even be discussed without seeing the photo in question? Shouldn’t a title have something to do with what you’re looking at?
Calling it “Urban” or “Gritty” sounds like you’re not really from there, like you’re a tourist from Hollywood visiting your photo instead of being an integeral part of it, the photo’s author, as it were.
Now, if your intended audience is something of a Reader’s Digest kinda crowd, the obviousness of it works well enough, and any of your suggestions sounds fine (or any combo, like “Urban Fantasia”). But if your audience is more sophisticated and arty, or wants to think of themselves that way, you want to go for something more pretentious. 
I’m thinking some subtle one-word title, something that’s evocative without being explicit. Maybe not even a real word. “Alabast” or “Iri”, or something.
Although, if your creative process is anything like mine, you’ll come up with something truly fantastic for yourself during the process of rejecting my ideas as being off the mark.
Yes, and they do. I know what ideas/imagery I’m trying to put across – this is an exercise to determine if the words I chose were successful in doing so.
Couple reasons. One is that this is a part of a series of photos where I have already established a style/convention for the titles. Secondly because in general, and particularly for a couple other photos in the series, the title was a vital guidepost for the audience to point them toward what they should be looking at. For ex. in one photo, the imagery at first blush appears to be very violent, and it would be easy for most people to pretty much stop looking there and assess it as a violent photo. With the title I was pointing out that what appeared to be violent, wasn’t actually so, and pointed the audience to keep going and look a bit deeper.
In any case, thank you to everyone. “Urban Mythos” seems to be landing closest to where I intended. I am trying to emphasize the juxtaposition of harsh urban reality with the idea of inspiration, imagination, fantasy, artistic vision, storytelling. The “Neverwhere” idea is actually really close to what I’m going for.
I’m actually really pleased that your impressions were so in line with mine. “Urban Fancy” was actually the “starter title” and I’ve been trying for a couple of months to find a better way of saying it.
For the curious, here it is.
Which photo is this? Because upon looking at the half-dozen photos in that set, I’m not seeing anything that looks violent.
Well, that’s your choice. But at some point, you gotta trust your audience to do the right thing (my personal bias is to avoid handholding where possible).
As an exercise, have you played around with different themes for the titles, such as “Untitled #<n>”, “<location, date>”, or “<name of person>” and seeing whether it affects how the pictures are perceived?
I don’t post my fetish photography on my website for a number of reasons. Mainly because I expect 99% of web surfers to have trouble distinguishing between challenging fine art and pr0n, sadly. I think that’s less of an issue with people who are motivated to physically go to a gallery, even a “mainstream” one. (The photo in question got a pretty good reception at the show I did last year, even juxtaposed against work by a children’s portrait photographer. ) In any case, I still need to entice people to pay me money for my services, so we just won’t mention the things they’re not likely to understand. It’s unfortunate but that’s the way it is. (Can’t say I’m fond of pretending to be a boring conformist clone, but I still need to eat.)
For the most part I agree with you, however in this particular case a key point in displaying the photo to begin with was to get people thinking about and maybe understanding things that are foreign to their own experience. If I put up a photo of a girl with a knife held to her face, odds are, unless you are already involved in that scene, all you’d see is the knife. But if I title it “Trust”, it might motivate you to notice how at peace her facial expression is.
This was actually discussed at length with the other artists in the show. I was very clear that I didn’t want to perpetuate negative stereotypes and was prepared to not show it at all in that case . Using the title as a directional guidepost was someone else’s idea and I think it worked very well.
I do that with portraiture and headshots. I’m trying to achieve something a bit different with the fine art stuff, particularly this series.
Fair enough. For the sake of those people reading this thread who do have the ability to appreciate challenging fine art, have you posted your other work somewhere else online? I enjoyed what little you have posted on the linked web site, but it seems sparse. I promise I won’t tell any prospective employers!
To me, Urban Mythos conjures up images of Zeus and Cthulu fighting each other as they destroy Tokyo.
Gritty Fantasia sounds like a mature-aged porn acress to me. Grim Fantasia, as another poster suggested, conjures up extremely cool images of a noir film, combing the grittiness and edge of a Philip Marlowe story with the innocence and wonderful magic of a neverwhen that may or may not include dancing brooms and a animated creature in a sorcerer’s hat.
Urban Fancy brings to mind images of The 'Hood and Cat Shows; possibly not what you were going for?
However, if you’re going for “Fancy” in the sense of “expensive/upmarket”, then how about Urban Sophisticated? You still get the juxtaposition in the title, but without the “cat show” connotations. Just a suggestion…
Or possibly, “Urban Sophisticate”.
To be honest, I find the titles a bit trite
* Urban Mythos
* Gritty Fantasia
* Urban Fancy
What are the words “urban” or “gritty” adding to the titling of the photo? The viewer can tell for themselves that the photos are urban or gritty. Unless you’re going for a purely descriptive title (e.g. “Man with flower, Red on White, Composition in Blue, etc…”) I think it’s best to leave out obvious descriptors, especially words like “gritty.” Heck, I think “Fantasia” on its own is better than “Urban Fantasia.” I tend to either like completely literal/factual titles or whimsical creative ones that are more oblique and encourage the viewer to think about the title in the context of the print. But that’s me. (Pix are pretty cool, though.)
I wanted to point out, if you didn’t know already, the guy’s tattoo is based on Disney’s Haunted Mansion wallpaper. In that context, the word Fantasia has a more corporate connotation, for better or worse. You might take that into account.
Yeah, it’s sparse. I do have some older stuff but I don’t really feel like I really found my “voice” until that year. I’m working on developing a larger portfolio but darkroom supplies and rental are expensive and current disposible income is basically nil.
Anyone interested in the other photos can PM me with your email and I can see if I can make a password protected directory or something. (Although not for a few days. Holidays with crazy-ass family. Currently surfing from my PDA quietly hidden in the guest bedroom because no one is “allowed” to use the computer now. And it is incredibly hard to post writing the entire thing in the letter recognizer with a stylus. Takes forever.)