Critique: a detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory.

In art school, students will prepare to have their work critiqued. In the photo lab at school you'll hear, "how'd the crit go?"

Put your work up on the wall in class and the teacher will critique it.

While many know this system and the way it works, many do not so I thought that I would critique a photograph in the blog. I spent my teaching career critiquing photographs so feel qualified to write how it works.

This is an image I found online by Johnny Crawford, with thanks. (source Google Images)

Many teachers will state the obvious first. The two paragraphs below are mostly statements of fact, establishing indisputably the foundation for the teacher's interpretation, which comes next.

Since we know nothing about this photograph, where it was made, what the photographer would say about it or who it is, we start from a place that is highly democratic. That can be a good thing as it levels the playing field. Of course, being critiqued one-on-one or in a class can be harder. Also, these days, making a black and white photograph is an artistic statement, removing the subject from reality and counter to the historical precedent of photojournalism in an earlier era before color prevailed.

The photograph is dark, backlit, with deep shadows. It is in black and white and the main subject, the person in the middle ground in the lower center is silhouetted. By pushing the tonalities dark and printing the image high contrast, the photographer has made it more dramatic.

Here comes the evaluation part. It is not unusual for a teacher to appear or to actually be bored with all this. Good ones will remember that the student is in effect putting it all out there, exposed and vulnerable. On the other hand, being able to absorb criticism and become a better photographer is the goal. Finally, what does it say about your work if the person critiquing it is bored by it?

For me, part of the problem lies with where our subject is placed. I find myself thinking, "what if the photographer had moved a little to the right, to isolate the figure differently?"There is something about his head blending into the shadowed background of the beach back there in the dark that bothers me. Tall buildings right on the beach: Miami or perhaps Rio in Brazil? Not sure. It makes me think that climate change will alter that, the relationship of the ocean to the buildings.

Often we present an image, hoping that it will go over well, be liked, that perhaps someone will really love it, even if we don't. That's tentative and can't be a good sign or way to present your work. That's what strikes me about this photograph, that it doesn't present to me as being emphatic or visceral. That it is ambivalent. It is a little passive and then drama's been added by using strong blacks and adding contrast. Inexperienced photographers usually take the picture as they see it, not taking the time to move low, to move left or right, to move in or out. Photography is not a direct translation of something as we see it. It is a tool for us to use to interpret that. Therefore we have to work with it to convey our intent. That takes training, experience and, most often, physical movement. Henri Cartier-Bresson used to talk about how he felt he was a dancer when he made his pictures. You can see that in his work. (Note: good teachers will always reference others' work. Good students will always go and look up the work the teacher mentioned).

Perhaps if the figure was larger in the frame? I am not sure. 

I think the printing is okay, although that is a whole lot of black. I seldom think total black is good, especially in large amounts in a photograph.

Last, I am not clear what the take away for this photograph is. Do I have a clear idea of the photographer's intention? Presumably, it is summer or taken in a warm climate, the boy in a bathing suit, people in the background in the water. This may seem trivial but does the thin white line around the photo help or hurt? And what was the logic behind the black board? Was that a good idea or not? Just a question.

Obviously, there is much more this crit could deal with and this one was pretty short but you get the idea. Crits get more complicated of course, as student's ideas and presentations get more involved. Thesis work, where a student presents a whole body of work, can take hours to get through. 

The student should get a sense that alternative approaches should be tried, that photographs most often fail when the photographer is hunting for meaning. Trying is good but succeeding is far better. If you know what you want going in the outcome will be better. Often crits pose questions and ask the student to work out their own answers. It is seldom as simple as a teacher providing an answer for, after all, life doesn't work that way, why should art?

And last, key to a good crit is others' response to the work. What do your classmates think? This can be applied to the idea of showing your work to others to judge their opinion: family, friends, other photographers, other kinds of artists, the powerful and eminent, neighbors, your dog (hah!): anyone and everyone.

I hope this has been helpful. Let me know if you'd like me to keep going with this as there is much more. Neal's Email

Narration, cohesion, flow, connection, sequencing, point made, story line, hinges, contrasts, enigma, on and on.

What happens when you put still photographs in proximity to still photographs? 

Hang two prints on a wall next to each other and right way something is going on. You ask us as viewers to compare one to the other. Stand behind someone doing this and you see their head going back and forth, left to right, forming opinions about darker verses lighter, contrastier verses flatter, closed verses open, receding verses projecting toward us, peaceful verses conflicted, muted verses saturated, on and on.

Same example except now make it three photographs hung on a wall next to each other. OMG! Much more complicated but the general tendency is for us as viewers  is to build a story line, to begin a narrative flow, for we now have a small group so we can go "beginning, middle and end". Our questions might be "Are we into something that is three photographs hung on a wall by the same artist?  Are the three connected to each other in content or intent?" And a big one, "what was the artist's idea, what was he/she trying to say here?" Three has a beautiful symmetry, a lovely pace where we can start, then state with a substantial point and then conclude. Tyrptych, trilogy, the "father, the son and the holy ghost". I think religion was on to something.  

Another way to answer these questions is to refer to someone who's an expert at making series photographs since 1980: me. 

How could a career artist in his 70s' who's been seriously committed as a photographer since 1973 sill be interested in this way of making pictures? To put a picture next to a picture that is next to a picture and so on for at times as many as 35 pictures? Because it all gets incredibly complicated, that's why. Imagine the challenge of making a series that is more than three. Starting out like in a symphony, stating the primary themes and points to come, leading into the main content, explicating, pointing, hinting then affirming later a few photographs down the line, coming across real problems, working to solve and then solving same problems, coming into angst (thinking Mahler here ), strife, anguish, bliss, and then to the lead up to something climactic, the climax itself, and then to finish, to conclude, up or down, major or minor, success or failure, peace or not. Okay, now try to do that with actual content sitting in front of your camera. A barn, a field, a place, an area, a day, someone, a flight, a walk through or down a path. Incredibly hard. Of course that's why I like it. Single still photographs after 50 years of being obsessed with photography? Sure, still do them and still like doing them.  But series work, now that's a challenge.

Want more or at least, verification? Go here (note some of these go on for several posts)

https://nealrantoul.com/posts/nantucket-1980%20Part%201

https://nealrantoul.com/posts/yountville

https://nealrantoul.com/posts/marc-s-meyer-profile

https://nealrantoul.com/posts/poucha-pond

and the most complicated of all, the three series three chapter symphony-in-concept small book called Trees, Sand and Snow:

https://nealrantoul.com/posts/treessand

and here for sale:

https://nealrantoul.com/books

Next up? I almost never know.

Stay tuned.

For many many years PDN served a purpose by covering all kinds of aspects of photography, primarily commercial, but also editorial, architectural, fine art, fashion and so on.The magazine had exhaustive and extensive reviews of new equipment and  user reports, articles on industry trends and in-depth interviews of prominent and trend setting people in photography.

Why is the magazine shutting down? Although photography is very large the model of the print version magazine is out of date and no longer sustainable. Many magazines are having a hard time, of course. People aren't so interested in getting their content in something that comes into their home once a month and that sits on the coffee table for a bit then gets thrown out. Many online versions of magazines stemmed from earlier print versions as a measure to grab internet subscribers. But, evidently there wasn't enough of this for PDN to justify a full staff of reporters, designers, photographers, writers and editors.

So, another photo magazine bites the dust. American Photographer, Popular Photography and many others. Is this simply because print editions are not the way we want to get our news anymore? Or is this something larger, specific to photography? I would argue a little of both.

Photography is undergoing foundational change. No longer primarily a print medium, photography is tied inexorably to video capture and with it, screen-based presentations. What we do, making prints for showing, collecting, selling and simply having, is now a small subset of an overall phenomena that is huge and universal.  Giving us industry news in a monthly printed format means we are getting the news far too late. We want to know what is happening now, practically as it is happening, not 6 weeks later. But camera sales are down too. With photography so big and imagery being so "everywhere" how can that be?

The Smartphone

Simple enough. Everyone now photographs. The hand-held phone is now required. No darkroom, no processing, no printing, just simply posting, sharing and showing on line. The quality of the capture from present day phones is now so good that argument against them is over. The "fine print" made from our expensive large format or full frame chip cameras? The print as a beautiful object? Something to treasure or purchase?  No, not so much. 

As a career photo educator I am at a loss to know what to teach, thankful I retired years ago. In the 60s, 70s and 80s we worked hard to legitimatize photography as a separate field worthy of academic study and pursuit in myriad undergrad and graduate programs nationally. As the head of a university program I could no longer justify teaching photography in isolation. I would have to bring in and welcome many other disciplines to our study, among them: video, animation, graphics, sound, production, small business practice and accounting, and probably several others. In truth, photography would play only a small role in the context of the other disciplines and the concept of integrating them all into a field of study that would be viable in the real world of new and recent grads looking for work. 

All this makes the earlier days of teaching photography and practicing it look naive and almost negligent. 

Off on a rant here and perhaps more for another time but to conclude, PDN is closing up shop and we are the lesser for it. By subscribing to PDN I felt plugged in, made aware of what was going on in the larger world of all things photography.  I am grateful for what the magazine and its staff gave us for many years. I for one will miss it.

I confess. I wrote this post a while ago and it has sat in my "to finish" list. Here it is.

I am going to write about cards: meaning photo cards I created that combined a note or text with pictures, sometimes my own and sometimes not.

About 2000, inkjet printing was evolving as were ways of sharing imagery. My skills were also improving as I moved through generations and iterations of printers. Various companies were also making do-it-yourself substrates and one of those was photo cards. I used one made by Kodak. I started with thank you notes and/or Xmas cards. These were a picture printed on a folding card with a note scribbled in my illegible handwriting. This then progressed to found photographs, family snapshots combined with some text, usually fiction, that made a story, or a commentary on the image.

This was a snapshot I'd found at a flea market. And here is the text I wrote to go    with it:

As time went on I'd make a card, perhaps sending it but also keeping a copy for myself. I still have most of them.

This one, of my dad, making a movie of some bizarre hunt in the backyard:

An Easter Egg hunt? I have no idea. And the text I wrote to go with it:

That's just two of them. There are many more.  Sometimes we forget the skills we have, the abilities that we have worked so hard and long to obtain are usable for far more than just making our prints for exhibition. I made cards at the time  as I was just learning how to make photographs and combine them with  type. It was early days and my abilities as a graphic designer are still wanting. These two above are just because I could. I encourage you to stretch out, to increase your range and breadth. It is far too easy to think of yourself in just one category as a visually creative person. 

I've been writing this blog for a little over seven years. For the most part it has been an extremely rewarding experience. To be able to have a place to share your work and your thoughts about your discipline is a privilege and one I do not take lightly.

As the years have progressed, photography has changed in powerful ways, becoming larger, ubiquitous and far more diverse. You, the group that are subscribers, have grown steadily. In fact, even though we are just a few days into 2020, there are several newcomers to the blog. Welcome.

I have found you, as subscribers, to be a fairly passive group. You prefer, it seems, to read the blog but not be participants in its content or players in what I choose to write about. That's fine. 

But I would like here to ask you to plug in a little, to write your ideas, your thoughts about photography early in this new decade. What questions do you have that remain unanswered as you read my posts? Are there topics or suggestions that someone like me might address? If you are younger and newer to a creative life, how can my years of experience be beneficial? Or, as you look over a career's worth of bodies of work on the gallery page of the site, what questions form in you? Why did I make those pictures that way? What went into my process? Or perhaps you are not a practitioner yourself but follow along in the blog: all good. But what can I write about that will answer your questions or clear up things for you? Are there topics or concerns of yours that you wish I'd addressed? Ask me. Finally, I have, over a 50 year career, met a wonderful and diverse group of people in all parts of my process: professors, curators, gallery directors, critics, reviewers, fellow artists, students, colleagues, friends and on and on. We could play the "Do you   know?" game or the "Have you met?" game.

Easy: email me. 

Neal's email: nrantoul@comcast.net

If you wish to remain anonymous I will honor that in the blog, of course.

I look forward to hearing from you.