Monday 11 February 2008

Captions

I always wonder what captions are for. I mean, they sort of end up with the ambiguity of some images, but some happen to grow with them. My last favourite caption is in this image by Christopher Anderson:





When I saw it at first I went. Duh, a bearded guy having a good time in a swimming pool, probably after a few margaritas. What's that about? Then I noticed the caption. It reads: "KUWAIT. Kuwait City. 2003. Antonin KRATOCHVIL swimming in the Hilton pool just before the invasion of Iraq."

Woh, now the image completely changes, as Kratochvil is pretty much involved in shooting wars, catastrophes, etc. Suddenly, a nice bite of sarcasm warms my heart. Thanks, mr caption.

What are your favourite captions?

4 comments:

Adam McAnaney said...

From what I've seen so far, I consider Herman Krieger the master of captions: subtle, witty and very, very funny in a way that doesn't get old or become less clever after you have read it for the 10th time. This is a very rare and supremely well-executed craft.

Take a look here: http://www.efn.org/~hkrieger/church.htm

Note: I have "Churches ad hoc" in hard copy as well, but I consider it extremely generous of Herman to post these on the internet, free for everyone to enjoy.

Best regards,
Adam

Unknown said...

who in magnum shoots with a holga? every day my membership gets closer...

Anonymous said...

The puns. Make it stop.

J. Karanka said...

@adam: I enjoyed "Try our Fluoridated Baptisms", so weird...

@egon: Chris Anderson always surprises me by shooting something different... holgas, flash on camera, medium format... you just don't know what he's comin up with next...

@steven: nobody expects the spanish inquisition