w🌀rds ➕p🎄ktures

When you put words and images together, they affect each other. It's not just that the images illustrate the words. Something is opened up. 

Barthes's distinction between 'the work' and 'the text' is relevant here. The work is a 'fragment of substance' - a physical book for example - while the text is 'a methodological field'[1]. The text is paradoxical and everchanging. This distinction also applies to visual art.

When you combine words and images, you create three source texts. There is the text that corresponds to the images, the text that corresponds to the words, and the text that corresponds to the combination of words and images. 

Notes

[1] Barthes, Roland, 'From Work to Text', Image Music Text, Hill and Wang, 1978