Describing Photographs.
9/23/18. Chapter 2 of Terry Barrett's Criticizing Photographs.
1. The author's thesis is that critics analyze photos using the many different ways to describe photographs. He explains their impacts on how the meanings of the art are conveyed, and how the audience perceives description.
2. He uses examples of many different photographers’ work from Avedon’s American West series and how they present their artwork in a very technical manner.
3. a) Description: Information that can be used to identify a photograph’s knowns and unknowns
based on observation and factual evidence. Description can be internal or external.
b) Subject and subject matter: subject is the overall main focus, and subject matter is the physical properties that make up the main focus of the photograph.
c) Form: helps to identify how the subject matter is presented in a photograph by looking at the composition and arrangement. Factors including light, texture, color, as well as position makes up form.
d) Medium: the material that the photograph or art is made up of. In photography, it usually consists of paper and frame, or the type of device used. This affects the formal elements used.
e) Style: a reoccurring artistic choice that is recognizable in terms of subject matter and form.
4. a) Comparing and contrasting: means to put it in perspective to other artists’ works to
relate the meaning of the art to each other by analysis. This can include finding similarities and differences. Barrett's view is that the critic has to understand both of these in order to analyze.
b) Internal and external sources of information: the details that are provided in the
photograph and also from the artist’s previous work, or about the artist themselves. Barrett’s view is that only critics disagree with how much internal and external info is used for analysis.
5. a) Description and interpretation: are intertwined, and are hard to separate. The individual
details/components have to be interpreted, or thought of, as a whole action. Barrett's view is that one has to interpret in order to describe.
b) Description and evaluation: description can have a positive or negative connotation and
impact on the evaluation of the art. Basically Barrett’s view is that description is criticism and evaluation.
6. I learned that there are many components that go into describing a photograph. In a very technical sense, Barrett broke down the different terms that contribute to describing photographs. Barrett's underlying message was that we as an audience/critic have to be able to research, and compare and contrast in order to fully analyze art. Another point that Barrett made near the end of the chapter is that photographs are constructs from people, and not part of nature. This was a very interesting point to me, and I have found his view to be true (in my opinion), in that writing is a form of criticism, and it is very hard to separate interpretation from description. I thought this material was very helpful for the viewers of a photograph in order to fully appreciate and review it for what it is, and form better (more educated) opinions on artwork.
