No caption needed? La légende photographique au prisme des ouvrages documentaires (1930-1945)
This paper examines photo-textual documentary books published between the mid-1930s and mid-1940s in the United States, resulting from a collaboration between a photographer and a writer or intellectual. It focuses on the role of the photographic caption, an element that is often sidelined by critic...
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| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ranam, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lenguaje: | Français |
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Recherches anglaises et nord-américaines
2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumario: | This paper examines photo-textual documentary books published between the mid-1930s and mid-1940s in the United States, resulting from a collaboration between a photographer and a writer or intellectual. It focuses on the role of the photographic caption, an element that is often sidelined by critics whose studies center on the links between text and photographs. In cases where captions are mentioned, their potentially “misleading” nature is frequently brought up, particularly in connection with documentary or photojournalism. And yet, the caption is often the only text found on the same page as the photograph: its role or nature can vary considerably from one work to another, and its presence gives rise to a unique form of intermediality, echoing (but distinct from) the relationship between the photographs and the main text. Through a corpus of documentary photobooks, the article examines the multitude of strategies devised by authors when it comes to the caption’s format and content: from the use of quotations (real or fictitious) attributed to individuals portrayed, to poetic captions, or even the deliberate absence of captions. The aim, then, is to see to what extent captions, beyond their simple function as a “verbal crutch”, contribute to the aims of these works, and to question the type of link they establish between the photographic image and the documentary’s main text. |
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