Criticizing Photographs: Chapter 3

"To interpret an image is to make sense of it. To interpret is to see something as "representing something, or expressing something, or being about something, or being a response to something, or belonging in a certain tradition, or exhibiting certain formal features, etc."

Prior to me attending UNH for art, I was going to a different college for English. In the classes that I took for this major, we had to interpret poetry. I think that most people think of poetry rather than art when they think of the word interpret. Until I started taking college-level studio classes, I was in that same category of people. I think the average person thinks about art in a way that they either accept it or they don't. They might get a specific feeling from a piece of artwork, but the average person doesn't really try to interpret all the smaller parts of a piece of artwork.

Terry Barrett briefly mentions photographs in newspapers or magazines, and how often people overlook all the parts of that photograph. How sometimes people might overlook all of the work that was put in to make even the simplest of photographs. He says that these types of photos are the ones that need interpretation the most. Often times, there is a lot more behind these photographs than what originally meets the eye. He also gives examples of questions that interpreters might ask themselves as they are looking over a photograph. It's important to ask yourself questions as you're viewing a photo because they can help you understand what the photograph is about, besides just the physical characteristics.

I don't think that when I'm looking over a photograph (of mine or someone else's) that I necessarily ask myself questions, like Barrett suggests. I think that I just go with the feelings that the photograph gives me, what I see and think about other things that I have seen in relation to that specific photograph.