One way to envisage the difference between “art” and “documentary” in photography turns on this relation to language and narrative. In the main, documentary is a closed form, designed to produce preferred interpretations. As such, images are usually combined with some form of anchoring text that steers the viewer/ reader in a particular direction. Photographic art, in contrast, typically abjures words, or employs elliptical text, in order to leave the image open to associations and interpretations. For art, vagueness or ambiguity is often the preferred mode.

In the 1980s, photo exhibitions were text-intensive as a reaction against the formalist aesthetics of the previous era where any contextualization or captioning was excoriated. But the pendulum swung again, and today text is usually shunned in the gallery space and banished to the artist’s statement available at the gallery desk or as a handout for visitors. Photographers can be creative at supplementing their images by using sound, narrative forms, or producing their own gallery guide, or brochure. But it’s not seen as acceptable at the present time to “force” visitors to read texts if they do not wish to.