Criticizing Photographs Excerpts from Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images by Professor Terry Barrett of The University of Ohio (Mayfield Publishing Co., 3rd ed., 2000). (This text is recommended for Fundamentals of Photography and required for Intermediate Photography.) Introduction: “One of the best ways to appreciate an image is to observe, think, and talk about it. This is what art criticism entails…. (T)he four activities of criticism – describing, interpreting, evaluating, and theorizing – can be thought of as seeking answers to four basic questions: What is here? What is it about? How good is it? Is it art?” Defining Criticism: “Unfortunately, we usually don’t equate criticism with appreciation because in everyday language the term criticism has negative connotations…. Critics are writers who like art and choose to spend their lives thinking and writing about it…. (I)n the language of art critics, criticism usually refers to a much broader range of activities than just the act of judging…. Criticism is informed discourse about art to increase understanding and appreciation of art.” Sources of Criticism: “Photography criticism can be found in many places – in photography classrooms, lecture halls, and publications. Published criticism appears in books, exhibition catalogues, art magazine, photography magazines, and the popular press.” The Value of Criticism: “The value of reading good criticism is increased knowledge and appreciation of art…. There are also considerable advantages for doing criticism…. An immediate advantage of thoughtful engagement with an artwork is that the observer’s viewing time is slowed down and measurably prolonged. This point is obvious but important: Most people visiting museums consider an artwork in less than five seconds. Five seconds of viewing compared to hours and hours of crafting by the artist seems woefully out of balance.” Describing Photographs: “To describe a photograph or an exhibition is to notice things about it and to tell another, out loud or in print, what one notices…. Descriptive information includes statements about the photograph’s subject matter, medium, and form, and then more generally, about the photograph’s causal environment, including information about the photographer who made it, the times during which it was made, and the social milieu from which it emerged. Descriptive information is true (or false), accurate (or inaccurate), factual (or contrary to fact)…. Describing is a logical place to start when viewing an exhibition or a particular photograph because it is a means of gathering basic information on which understanding is built…. Describing photographs and reading descriptions of photographs are particularly important activities because people tend to look through photographs as if they were windows rather than pictures…. (B)ecause people know that photographs are made with a machine, people tend to consider photographs as if they were real events or living people rather than pictures of events or people. Pictures are not nature and they are not natural; they are human constructs. Photographs, no matter how objective or scientific, are the constructions of individuals with beliefs and biases, and we need to consider them as such.” Interpreting Photographs: “As a culture we are perhaps more accustomed to thinking of interpreting poems and paintings than photographs. But all photographs – even simple ones – demand interpretation in order to be fully understood and appreciated…. Photographs made in a straightforward, stylistically realistic manner are in special need of interpretation…. When looking at photographs, we tend to think of them as ‘innocent’ – that is, as bare facts…. But there is no such thing as an innocent eye. We cannot see the world and at the same time ignore our prior experience in and knowledge of the world…. (T)hink of all photographs as metaphors in need of being deciphered…. Roland Barthes, the late French scholar … paid particular attention to how photographs signify. He identified two signifying practices: denotations and connotations. A photographed still-life arrangement may denote (show) flowers in a vase on a wooden table; it may connote (suggest, imply) peace, tranquility, and the delightfulness of the simple…. When people talk about art in a democratic society such as our own, they tend to unthinkingly hold that everyone’s opinion is a good as everyone else’s. Thus, in a discussion in which we are trying to interpret or evaluate an artwork and a point of view is offered that is contrary to our own, we might say, ‘That’s just your opinion,’ implying that all opinions are equal and especially that our own is equal to any other. Opinions that are not backed with reasons, however, are not particularly useful or meaningful…. Another widespread and false assumption in our culture about discussing art goes something like this: ‘It doesn’t matter what you say about art, because it’s all subjective anyway.’ … Talk about art can be verifiable, if the viewer relates his or her statements to the artwork. Although each of us comes to artworks with our own knowledge, beliefs, values, and attitudes, we can talk and be understood in a way that helps make sense of photographs….” Evaluating Photographs: “When critics criticize photographs they sometimes but not always judge them. When critics do judge photographs, they usually praise them but sometimes condemn them. The terms evaluation and judgment are synonymous…. Judgments, like interpretations, depend on reasons. To declare something ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ ‘original’ or ‘remarkable,’ without giving reasons as to why it is thought to be so … is not very revealing or helpful…. Critical judgments are different from preferences. Preferences do not require reasons…. (S)tatements of preference tell us more about the person making the statements than about the object in question…. The distinction between preferences and values can be personally liberating because the distinction allows us to dislike certain things even though it is understood that they are good; and to like and enjoy certain things even though it is understood that they are not particularly worthwhile from a critical standpoint