Week 8: Photography

3) How do captions and cut lines re-frame the meaning of an image?

In semiotics, we learned about anchorage. Anchorage is when a text is linked to the image so that the audience would be able to interpret the message easily. Captions and cutlines are considered as anchoring. It is powerful because it can anchor the message which is trying to be delivered to the audience. In this post, I will include some photos which are given captions or cut lines.

Figure 1:

“Not enough sleep will cause wrinkles, eye bags and restless face”

In figure 1, according to the caption, it shows that if you want to look beautiful, you must get enough sleep. And if you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll become like the second photo. However, if we changed the captions, it will re-frame the meaning of the photo. For example, in figure 2, below,

Figure 2:

“Before and After DRUGS!!”

In figure 2, above, the caption is changed to “Before and After DRUGS!!” When the viewer of this photo looks at the caption, they will automatically say that the drugs can affect the looks of a person.

Captions and cut-lines are the most essential part of the photo. The audiences tends to seek captions or cut-lines which are interesting, something which has the power to attract their minds to read the story. For example, in the newspaper, the readers will search the caption or cut-lines which interest them. Captions and cut-lines are considered as having the higher priority in the newspaper. This is because, if the captions or cut-lines are boring, the audiences will not continue reading the story. 

A cutline is necessary because of the functions provided such as identification, description, explanation and elaboration (Luebke, 1989). A cutline also tells the reader of “who”, “what”, “when”, “where” and “how” in the photograph so that the viewer can understand the meaning of the photo.

In conclusion, photographs usually show reality and the moments of events, and a photograph with captions or cut-lines will therefore make the photo even more powerful to convey meanings or information to the audiences. Therefore, captions or cut-lines are significant to tell the story of the picture or to send the message to the intended viewer (Askew & Wilk, 2002). Without the captions or cut-lines, the photo will remain meaningless and the viewer of the photo will not fully understand it. Thus, sometimes, the photos are also manipulated by putting the caption or cutlines which will reframe the meaning of the photo. According to Stovall and Mullins (2005), cutlines is a description of the caption that is associated with the photograph. Captions or cutlines are necessary when it comes to photojournalism because they answer the questions which are often asked by the viewer, such as explanation, descriptions or elaboration of the photo.

References

Askew, K. M., & Wilk, R. R., (2002), The anthropology of media: A reader. Victoria, Australia: Blackwell.

Luebke, B. F., (1989), Out of focus: Images of women and men in newspaper photographs. Sex Roles, 20(3), 121-133, doi: 10.1007/BF00287986

Stovall, J. G. & Mullins, E., (2005), Writing cutlines or captions, from http://www.jprof.com/onlinejn/webjn-cutlines.html , retrieved on 18^th November, 2012.