# Using poetry in photos?



## counterfugue (Jul 18, 2010)

Hi -- I'm primarily a writer, and I'm just beginning to dabble in photos (just for personal interest).

I have a project I'm thinking about that involves TEXT/POETRY and photography.
It may end up becoming part of a book of poems I'm working on.

I'm considering having subjects write verse or words on sheets or slips of paper, or maybe having them write on an arm or something like that. (The idea seems to be that the text can in some way interact with subject and composition of the shot.)

I've never seen anyone do anything like this, though. (Well, maybe other than a Bob Dylan video 

Has anyone seen anything like this? Any ideas, suggestions? 

Thanks.


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## white (Jul 18, 2010)

Duane Michals wrote stories on his prints often. I'm sure others have done similar things, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.







"How foolish of me to believe it would be that easy.
I had confused the appearances of trees and automobiles,
and people with reality itself, and believed that
a photograph of these appearances to be a photograph
of it.  It was a meloncholy truth that I will
never be able to photograph it and can only fail.
I am a reflection photographing other reflections
within a reflection.  To photograph reality
is to photograph nothing."


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## counterfugue (Jul 18, 2010)

That's a pretty cool idea, too.  To be able to bring the process and reflection into the presentation of the photo.  Would work well when compiling the photos.  Thanks.

(And btw, what a painful realization in the lines: that in effect, we are only capturing afterimages of something that has a truth. Pretty rad.)


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## SwissJ (Jul 18, 2010)

Cool project.  This could be of some relevance to you...
Museum of Contemporary Photography


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## Morpheuss (Jul 19, 2010)

You mean like taking a photo and taking out the words on a billboard and making it look like it has your poem on it? or having your poem like usually you see the foot prints in the sand poem with a picture of a beach and the poem ontop of the photo? Both you should be able to do just using a photo editing software like photoshop or GIMP.


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## crimbfighter (Jul 19, 2010)

I think this could be a cool idea. It could be neat to use a contextual canvas, so to speak. So for example if you were writing a poem about a persons self reflections on a beach, you could actually write the poem on someones back and photograph their back while they're sitting on the beach.

Is that along the lines of what you were thinking?


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## flyingember (Jul 19, 2010)

I've seen something like that before.  it works well if done super carefully.  the photo has to match the mood of the poem perfectly and the poem needs to be written on something that fits into the photo


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## counterfugue (Jul 19, 2010)

crimbfighter said:


> I think this could be a cool idea. It could be neat to use a contextual canvas, so to speak. So for example if you were writing a poem about a persons self reflections on a beach, you could actually write the poem on someones back and photograph their back while they're sitting on the beach.
> 
> Is that along the lines of what you were thinking?



Yes. That is one way I might use it. (Or a variation on your idea might be to take a "beach" poem and write it on a busy Manhattan sidewalk, for contrast.)

The text can interact with the photo in an number of ways.

But I hadn't been considering entire poems. More like single, evocative words, or short lines.


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## counterfugue (Jul 19, 2010)

flyingember said:


> I've seen something like that before.  it works well if done super carefully.  the photo has to match the mood of the poem perfectly and the poem needs to be written on something that fits into the photo



I'm hoping to do more than "match" the poem, though. I'm hoping to have the text "add" something -- a new dimension or something. 

I've seen this in photographic terms before: a main subject in the pic, but then some other minor element in the frame that alters or adds or revises your perspective on the main subject.

Example: I can imagine a twilight photo with a dark landscape, and a dark blue sky, and a figure in front of a candle with Dickinson's line on his arm: "Summer  we all have seen"


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## counterfugue (Jul 21, 2010)

bump?


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## JeffieLove (Jul 21, 2010)

I made an attempt at what I think you're talking about... I stole some Carrie Underwood lyrics though :/ I'm not too great at the poetry thing...


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## counterfugue (Jul 21, 2010)

Thanks. I really appreciate your thinking.

My hope is to have the text *in* the photo. Written on a hand. Held on a placard. Scrawled on a rock.

And less text. A word. A line maybe.

A suggestion, and involved somehow in the composition.



JeffieLove said:


> I made an attempt at what I think you're talking about... I stole some Carrie Underwood lyrics though :/ I'm not too great at the poetry thing...


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## JeffieLove (Jul 21, 2010)

ahhh... something more like... 

TWLOHA from facebook? (TWLOHA=To Write Love On Her Arm... Suicide Awareness)


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## counterfugue (Jul 21, 2010)

Thanks!  In a way, yes. That's sort of the idea 
(Never heard of TWLOHA...)

And now to tweak it by making the text less cartooned, much less of the subject, more evocative, and couched in a more lyrical photo 

I have my work cut out. 

I wonder if anyone has ever undertaken this kind of theme?




JeffieLove said:


> ahhh... something more like...
> 
> TWLOHA from facebook? (TWLOHA=To Write Love On Her Arm... Suicide Awareness)


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## Morpheuss (Jul 21, 2010)

that is a really cool Idea you should definately go for it.


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## AgentDrex (Jul 21, 2010)

I know exactly what you mean and being a poet myself, I am totally stealing the idea...let us see some of your progress as soon as possible and I will do like-wise...


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## SwissJ (Jul 21, 2010)

text in photo on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Diaphanous (Photo Text) on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Rose Colored Glasses on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Toilet in Harajuku on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Languages & Texts on Flickr - Photo Sharing!


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## MrsMoo (Jul 21, 2010)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPDcwjJ8pLg[/ame]

This is similar I suppose in a way, as each bit of card is about the person holding it.
And TWLOHA. I took part in that


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## counterfugue (Jul 21, 2010)

"Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator."
Jeff Tweedy 

 Happy to hear it




AgentDrex said:


> I know exactly what you mean and being a poet myself, I am totally stealing the idea...let us see some of your progress as soon as possible and I will do like-wise...


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## c.cloudwalker (Jul 21, 2010)

I have several word/image projects in the works. I started by trying to illustrate my own poetry but I found it way too hard. I just couldn't make images that conveyed the feeling of the piece. They were more like illustrations of just a chunk of it and that didn't work for me, lol.

I then tried in my last city in the US to do a series of portraits juxtaposed by a text from the subject on the city. Something, anything, about it. I had a hell of a time getting subjects to sit for the photos and then I moved so, that project was abandoned. But some of the results may get included into another variation on this idea.

Right now I'm working on a comic book type thing with highly PSed photos and also an illustrated children story.

I got some of my inspiration from books that don't have any photos such as the "Griffin and Sabine" series by Nick Bantock and the work of Dave McKean. But I've always felt that inspiration for photographic works can come from other medias. The two books that originally got me started though are Sarah Moon's version of "Little Red Riding Hood" (unfortunately out of print and fairly expensive on the used market) and a book called "Structure of the Visual Book" by Keith Smith. Basically about the book as an art piece, a sculpture. It's an old book so probably not available new.

The last thing I want to mention is Photo-montage. It is a bit like collage except that it only uses photo materials, either negs or prints. Photo-montage has been used in different ways during the history of photography but there was a period in France when the artists where trying to turn the resulting images into a visual poem.

From my own experience it is easier to do with either prints or LF negs as cutting up details in a 35 mm neg is not easy. I used mostly 4x5 and 8x10 negs to end up with a final neg of 11x17. I used my own rejected negs as well as found stuff and it was quite fun to do.

Hope this inspires you.

PS = Thanks to white for mentioning Duane Michaels. I had forgotten about him, lol.


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