Marks and Meaning

Usually I’m a bit reluctant to include any text in my compositions because you never know how a viewer might react to a fragment of text, how they might read it. It can be a real distraction, and even run counter to my overall intent for the image. But since I don’t read Japanese, text becomes a simple graphic element to play around with. Here for instance, I just like the overall composition, and possible misreadings of the text don’t enter into it for me. If you’re Japanese you might beg to differ.

Text in photos

I'm not sure how I feel about including text in photographs, especially those images that tend toward the more abstract. My tendency is to respond to the graphical aspects and overall composition within the frame, but I think viewers often try to find words, thoughts, or concepts embedded in an image that contains text. Problem is, they sometimes find things you didn't even notice. Don't ask me how I know this. Recently, I saw a show with some work from the 1980s. One of the pieces was comprised entirely of text in neon. Common turns of phrase of the time. Honestly, the work has not aged that well. What struck me most is that nobody talks like they did in the '80s anymore.