a study on the role and position of title in expressive function of photo

abstract a title, in conveying the meaning of the entitled photo, can act from being a designator to an element which changes the meaning and its message is perceived in different levels of obtaining the photo’s final meaning. therefore, ignoring its role in interpreting the content of work is the same as eliminating a part of photo. various studies have been done centering titling issue, but there hasn't been any cohesive research in this field in iran. this research for the first time in iran and with the purpose of creating sensitivity in titling and its reading, examines the role and the place of title in conveying the photographic meaning and elucidate the validity of former definitions of title, to photos. since any communicative act requires conveying of the meaning, when we speak of the expressive function of a photo, in fact we refer to transmission of the message by the photo. for acquiring an understanding of this function and the probable position of title in it, this research first examines our communicative background with image and text as representatives of photo and title and presents the discussions related to semiology. that’s because by combining the definition and generalizing them to photography arena, a practical and proved framework for knowing different kinds of titles can be obtained. for making this framework tangible, this research by studying the available statistical samples, categorizes the titles of the photos in galleries of iran. in this research it has been concluded that not only title plays a role in expressive function of a photo as the photo, but introduces itself as an essential interpretive and communicative component in the expressive functions of a photo. besides, a title is a designative name which discerns the work form the other works. assigned by the artist and contributing to the final reading of work’s meaning, it does the designative task not by being unique in the art world, but by differentiating in the meaning which it creates in relation to the work. the researcher, reached to the final meaning of the photo in her statistical survey in terms of the referential function of message. since this function consists of the messages of photo and title, reaching to the final meaning is in fact reaching to the sole meaning of the relation between the implicit and the explicit message of the photo. this means that through reading and defining the message of the title, in relation to the message of gallery photos and by utilizing this flowing mode between the two message and different categorizing for the given titles, the researcher divides titles to two category of expressive and signifier. the method of the present study is a combination of the descriptive and analytical methods. it is descriptive because the theoretical basis of the research is established through discovering and expressing the relations of text and image and in a more careful look to the title and photo and presenting the viewpoint of different people. wherever this basis is used in reading the titles of photos in galleries, the study takes an analytical frame.