I Tried to Describe a Photograph With One Word

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I recently came across an idea that sounded almost too simple to be useful: try describing what a photograph is really about in one word.

Not the obvious subject. If I’m photographing a waterfall, the word isn’t waterfall. If I’m standing in front of an old building, the answer isn’t building. The idea is to get underneath the subject and ask what actually made me want to photograph it.

That’s where it gets harder.

Maybe the word is quiet.

Maybe it’s lonely, warm, uneasy, small, or waiting.

I started turning that over in my mind because I don’t normally photograph that way. Usually something catches my attention first. I move around, look through the camera, change the composition, and slowly begin figuring out what interested me. Sometimes I understand it immediately. Other times I’m halfway through making photographs before I realize what I’m really responding to.

Trying to reduce all of that to one word sounds almost ridiculous.

But I think that may be why the idea interests me.

Finding the Word Behind the Subject

Suppose I’m standing beside a quiet lake early in the morning. There may be beautiful light, reflections, trees, mist, and plenty of things that could become the subject. But perhaps what stopped me wasn’t really any of those things.

Maybe it was the stillness.

If my word is quiet, I suddenly have something different to think about. Does the composition actually feel quiet? Is there too much competing for attention? Would more open space help? Am I including something simply because it looks interesting even though it works against what caused me to stop in the first place?

The word hasn’t told me what to photograph.

It has made me think about why I’m photographing it.

That distinction is what I like.

We photographers can become pretty good at asking technical questions. Is the exposure right? Where should I focus? Which lens should I use? Should I move closer? Is something distracting along the edge?

Those questions are useful, but they can come so naturally that sometimes I wonder if I ask them before the more basic one.

What am I responding to?

You might try the same thought with one of your photographs. Forget whether it’s technically successful for a minute. What one word comes to mind when you look at it?

Maybe it’s distance.

Maybe comfort.

Perhaps chaos.

There probably isn’t a correct answer, and that makes the exercise more interesting to me rather than less.

Does the Photograph Communicate That Word?

The harder question comes next.

Does the photograph actually communicate that word?

I might believe I’m making a photograph about loneliness and later discover that the finished image doesn’t feel lonely at all. The light may have changed it. Maybe I included too much. Perhaps something I barely noticed while I was there became the strongest part of the photograph.

I don’t think that automatically means I failed.

Sometimes the photograph knows where it’s going before I do.

That happens often enough in photography. I begin with one idea and come home with another. Something I expected to be important becomes secondary. A detail I almost ignored becomes the reason I keep returning to the image.

So I wouldn’t want to turn this into a rule. I have no desire to stand around naming every photograph before I’m allowed to press the shutter. That would probably take the enjoyment out of it pretty quickly.

I think I’d rather use the idea occasionally, especially when I know something has caught my attention but I can’t quite explain why.

One word might be enough to make me stop and look again.

Looking for Patterns, One Word at a Time

And there’s another side to this that may be even more revealing. Instead of choosing the word before making the photograph, what happens if I choose it afterward?

Take a group of older photographs and give each one a word. Don’t spend ten minutes trying to find the perfect answer. Use the first honest word that comes to mind.

Then keep going.

I wonder what would happen after twenty or thirty photographs.

Would the same words begin appearing?

Would quiet keep coming back? Would I discover distance, solitude, joy, or order hiding inside photographs of completely different subjects?

That could tell me something I never noticed while I was making them.

Maybe the most interesting word wouldn’t describe the photographs at all.

Maybe it would describe something about the photographer who kept making them.

Learn More

The Photographer’s Voice

The Power of I Don’t Know Yet

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About the Photograph

Photograph taken at Blackwater Falls State Park near Davis, West Virginia. Photograph by Will Moneymaker.