Criticizing Photographs: Chapter 8

In the final chapter of his book, Barrett finally talks about writing about photographs. He makes an important point: you need to be interested by a photograph in order to write about it. He suggests that while you're looking and studying a photograph, to write down some notes of things that come to mind when you first look at an image. This simple exercise will help to get your mind thinking artistically and help you remember what you originally thought of the image. He also mentions that it is important to try to look at the photograph from a point within the photograph. It's sort of like placing yourself inside the frame and looking at the scene in front of you, as if you were the photographer. I've never really done this exercise before, but I think it would be interesting to try it out. He also says how important it is to talk about photographs, like in the critique setting we have here in our photography department at UNH. I personally enjoy the critique setting we have here because it allows us to all build off one another, maybe seeing things we hadn't originally noticed. It also gives the artist a chance to listen to the other students' impressions of the work and maybe the viewers see things that the artist hadn't intended. This type of critique setting also helps for future projects, because as the viewers are discussing a particular work, it can trigger ideas in the artist's head about things to do differently next time, etc.