A Seeing Exercise
One exercise that can help students begin to look at photographs calls on one photographer to describe, in detail, the image they are looking at while the other, who cannot see the photo, tries to draw the description they hear. This can be performed where the photographer describes one of their images to the reviewing partner or as a practice where the teacher supplies simple historical or contemporary images and students pair up. In both cases, one has access to an image and the other has a drawing pad and pencil. The person with the photo is faced with the challenge of making hyper-descriptive instructions for the person that is drawing. When given a photograph like Brassai’s Fille de Joie, Quarter D’Italie, 1932, the process may start out with a description like: The image is roughly 8 x 12 inches in a portrait format. It is black and white and if you were to draw a rule of thirds diagram, there is a woman whose entire front-facing body would fall on the right vertical line. Their head would be on the upper right intersection. The head is about a 1.5 inches and the intersection would fall on their nose. The exercise slows down the act of looking so both students can do their jobs well. It is remarkable how accurate some of the drawings can be in comparison to the photographs.
For each of 1-3 images, reviewers typically note one positive aspect, one suggestion for improvement, and ask one thoughtful question about the work. Questions like, What made you take this photograph? or Who is this a picture of?, are generally not acceptable. The reviewer should ask a question that will help them gain some insight about the image they are looking based on the evidence in the photo. Only in this way can one offer beneficial, constructive suggestions. Also, the question is an opportunity to enrich that insight when interpreting the image. The final step in the critique is when the reviewer offers an informed interpretation, based on the answer to their question, the title, and the evidence provided in the photo, about what they think the image communicates. Critiquers should take note of what ideas or concepts are prevalent in the work. So, the four steps are, describe the photo, offer one suggestion, point out one positive aspect, and explain what the photograph means. In Eric Kim’s method of critique he talks about what he learned as the, “critique sandwich,” where, “The idea is based on the premise of starting off with positive feedback (the top bun), the meat of the critique which is honest and critical, and ending with another positive comment (the bottom bun).” (Kim, 2012)
One exercise that can help students begin to look at photographs calls on one photographer to describe, in detail, the image they are looking at while the other, who cannot see the photo, tries to draw the description they hear. This can be performed where the photographer describes one of their images to the reviewing partner or as a practice where the teacher supplies simple historical or contemporary images and students pair up. In both cases, one has access to an image and the other has a drawing pad and pencil. The person with the photo is faced with the challenge of making hyper-descriptive instructions for the person that is drawing. When given a photograph like Brassai’s Fille de Joie, Quarter D’Italie, 1932, the process may start out with a description like: The image is roughly 8 x 12 inches in a portrait format. It is black and white and if you were to draw a rule of thirds diagram, there is a woman whose entire front-facing body would fall on the right vertical line. Their head would be on the upper right intersection. The head is about a 1.5 inches and the intersection would fall on their nose. The exercise slows down the act of looking so both students can do their jobs well. It is remarkable how accurate some of the drawings can be in comparison to the photographs.
For each of 1-3 images, reviewers typically note one positive aspect, one suggestion for improvement, and ask one thoughtful question about the work. Questions like, What made you take this photograph? or Who is this a picture of?, are generally not acceptable. The reviewer should ask a question that will help them gain some insight about the image they are looking based on the evidence in the photo. Only in this way can one offer beneficial, constructive suggestions. Also, the question is an opportunity to enrich that insight when interpreting the image. The final step in the critique is when the reviewer offers an informed interpretation, based on the answer to their question, the title, and the evidence provided in the photo, about what they think the image communicates. Critiquers should take note of what ideas or concepts are prevalent in the work. So, the four steps are, describe the photo, offer one suggestion, point out one positive aspect, and explain what the photograph means. In Eric Kim’s method of critique he talks about what he learned as the, “critique sandwich,” where, “The idea is based on the premise of starting off with positive feedback (the top bun), the meat of the critique which is honest and critical, and ending with another positive comment (the bottom bun).” (Kim, 2012)