Caption This: A Photographic Collection of Amusing Comments, Snarky Asides, and Romantic Admissions

by Barbara Levine, Paige Ramey, Martin Venezky (Designer)

A fascinating collection of photographs from the past century that have surprising, funny, and poignant captions.

Whether it's words scrawled in pencil below an old Polaroid or a pithy comment on a social media photo, we've all felt a pull to describe in words and sentences the pictures and moments of our lives. This celebration of a century of personal photo captions, in all their forms, themes, and voices, explores the captivating (and often contradictory) relationship between what we see in photos and what we say about them.

Through 150 color and black-and-white vintage photographs of everyday people dating back to the early twentieth century, arranged in nine thematic chapters ( This is me grooving , This is my snarky side , This is me in love , etc.), Caption This reveals a funny and surprising secret history of the handwritten or typed caption.

Caption This is a unique delight for photography and pop culture enthusiasts that combines the candidness of Awkward Family Photos with the confessional intimacy of PostSecret.

Genres: Humor, Photography

176 pages, Hardcover

Published October 3, 2023

About the author

Barbara Levine runs project b, a curatorial services company specializing in archives, collections, vernacular photography, and artist projects. She was formerly director of exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Reviews

[Chris Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s something particularly beguiling about found photography, the way you get a completely contextless snapshot of someone you will never know’s life. It’s moving and powerful and sweet and promises so much about lives you’ll never experience. Captions on found photography expand that contextless aspect even more, full of private jokes and revealing moments otherwise lost to history. This is a lovely collection of them but probably should have been put together by a designed who wasn’t determined to try and turn every page into something exciting and kinetic, because it really does undermine the power of some of the images. A lovely book but could be much better if it weren’t so restlessly determined to be loved