Image and Text...

Image and text individually are two very different things. When we see an image we allow our minds to explore its depth and create our own story of its background. In contrast to this, text is mainly used to inform us of what is happening. However when the two are combined, it can create a new form of art. Adding text to an image can inform an audience, used in advertising for example. It can tell the story behind the photograph, giving our minds a direction to explore the image. The combination of the two can also tackle serious social and political issues. Whatever the task, the addition of text to an image has become an extremely popular art movement and still remains till this day. 
It would be impossible to talk about image and text and not mention Barbara Kruger. As an American conceptual artist, her work merges existing photographs, mainly black and white images, and bold, rhetorical text that tackle serious issues such as consumerism, war, feminism, sexism and democracy.
Probably her most famous piece of work is 'I Shop Therefore I Am' from 1987. Playing on Descarte's 'I Think Therefore I Am', Kruger changes this sentence to a materialistic level and questions consumerism; it states that people are now known for what they own rather than what they think. Kruger tends to use existing images and ironically use them to create a new message.  
Another artist that also uses the combination of text and image is Gillian Wearing. As an conceptual artist, she approaches people of the street and asks them to write something on a piece of paper, as part of the collection "Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say". Some of the results give quite an ironic reaction to Wearing's photography, such as an business man being 'desperate' and a policeman asking for 'HELP'. Some other results prove to tackle serious social and political issues of today. 


On working on our magazine, we initially knew we had to combine word and image in order to create one. With the idea of using facts about Birmingham but illustrating them in several different ways, we had many opportunities to create unique combinations. One idea was to present a fact in the style of Gillian Wearing's photography, mentioned previously. We chose this technique because it was eye-catching, drawing a reader in. I also chose to capture this shot in this particular setting so the text would relate more to the image. This is another important factor of the combination of the two, each need to relate to each other in order to be successful.