Using poetry in photos?

[counterfugue]

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.

 

[white]

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."

 

[counterfugue]

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.)

 

[SwissJ]

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

 

[Morpheuss]

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.

 

[crimbfighter]

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?

 

[flyingember]

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

 

[counterfugue]

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.

 

[counterfugue]

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"

 

[counterfugue]

bump?

 

[JeffieLove]

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...

 

[counterfugue]

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.

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...

 

[JeffieLove]

ahhh... something more like...

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

 

[counterfugue]

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?

ahhh... something more like...

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

 

[Morpheuss]

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