I read parts of the last two paragraphs with interest**….thinking about it it the context of the exhibition that I am curating (exhibition focus is exploring how objects may become infused with meaning…surpassing their ‘object-ivity’ and commodity) which includes a portion of my Japanese pottery collection with a collection of articles that I have written about some of the pieces. All the meanings that are caught in those pieces would never be known without the writing and the extended captions that I will be including. The works would be lovely and powerful, but the meaning and intention for including them in the exhibition would be lost without the words.

For example, the extended-caption for the little karatsu-yaki cup tells the story about what was, for me then, a new learning, touching as it does on the idea of unintended consequences coming out of good-hearted motivations. I never see or use the piece without re-experiencing the ‘new truth’ that I first encountered almost 30 years ago….something no one else would know if I offered no words to accompany it.

** The photos are expected to stand pretty much alone, however. There are extended descriptive captions but they are in the back of the book and easily overlooked. The essays in the book include an interview with the photographer and two essays about him and his work. I like the book and have it in my collection but it does not tell me as much about South Africa as did some of his earlier work exploring the nature of apartheid. (See, for example, his classic Some Afrikaners Photographed in its new edition, Some Afrikaners Revised.)

None of this is to say that photographs cannot stand on their own. Many can, and should, but it depends on our intent. If our goal is to help the viewer confront and understand historical reality, we may need to add words.