Close reading paper about a picture at least 400 words

CLOSE READING

THE ASSIGNMENT

A one to two page “close reading” paper of a photography-based artwork by an artist featured in a current or recent art exhibition at a art gallery, museum, artist-run space that is featured online. You may briefly touch on the background of the artist, but you should focus on a single or pair of photographs, and give a “close reading” of a selected work discussing the technical, compositional, genre, and subject-matter presented. How do the creative and technical choices made help build the meaning of the individual work and their project overall? Provide evidence by pointing to specific details in the photograph, and stating other social, cultural, or political context relevant to interpretation.

You must include the Photograph along with Artist, Title and Date. The image should be a resolution large enough for your TA to view (no thumbnails) and list the publication or exhibition in which the work was presented. Social Media posts do not qualify. 

VISUAL LITERACY

Form + Content + Context = Meaning

Visual Literacy includes the ability to describe, analyze, and critique meaning in the following:

• Connotative and Denotative aspects in the picture

• Technical execution of the photograph

• Creative and Artistic Gestures used by the Photographer

• How is the photograph in conversation with the larger world?

ASK YOURSELF

What is going on in this picture?

What do you see that makes you say that? Find details to support your interpretation

On second and third look, what more can you find?

What prior cultural knowledge do you rely upon in order to understand the Photograph?

GENRES

What combination of Genres is your photograph? Some genres, or styles, may be :

Landscape, Portrait, Action, Architectural, Environmental, Still-life, Event, Family, Posed,

Candid, Documentary, Self-portrait, Abstraction, Performance, etc…

The Genre of photograph provide context for which Technical and Creative and Compositional

decisions went into the making of your Photograph, and criteria for evaluating how “successful”

the type.

TECHNIQUE

Put what you have learned from your Technical Exercises to use:

How are elements of Exposure used in the Photograph? Is a fast or slow Shutter Speed

apparent, or perhaps the grain of a high ISO or smoothness of low ISO and what may be behind

that decision? How is Depth of Field considered?

Is the Photograph in Color or Black and White? How does that affect the picture, and why might

that choice have been made?

COMPOSITION

How is the subject or scene framed? What is depicted and what aspect are we shown - full or

partial, and what may be excluded from the frame?

Are there major compositional elements in the Photograph? Do these involve scale? Light and

shadow?

TIME

How is the Technique of the Photograph used to place the picture within Time ?

Are we looking at a fleeting moment? Do we contemplate something that may have existed

long before the Photographer came across the scene, and will endure?

Does the Photograph interrupt or extend the flow of time?

Does the Photograph preserve a moment for us to remember?

AUDIENCE

Does the Photograph address us, and how so, or not?

Does it show us something unexpected? Does is tell us that something is important that we may

have overlooked or forgotten?

Does it ask us to feel emotion, or take a stand, or call us to action?

TITLES

What is the title of your Photograph, if it has a title, and what kind of title is it?

Titles might provide information in a straight-forward manner, they may add to or confuse

meaning. Titles may be poetic or not. Titles may be metaphors. Titles may provide information

that makes legible the denotative or connotative aspects.

What kind of meaning does the title make?

PROJECT, ARTIST, CONTEXT

Your Photograph may be part of a larger project by the Artist/Photographer. If so, what is the larger

project about, what are the aims of the Artist, and how does the Photograph make sense within the

series?

Who is the Artist and where in the world, socially and culturally, does the work come from?

What else is happening at this time that might be helpful to understand? Is there a topical or current

issue? Is there a political argument at stake? How does the Artist make use of this context, or not?

THE UNEXPECTED

Is there unanticipated meaning in the Photograph that you find and can support through

evidence, that might have not been planned by the Artist?

JEFF WALL - Search of Premises (2009)

EVELYN HANG YIN - Dear Ancestors, (2018-19)

DAWOUD BEY - Untitled #20 (Farmhouse and Picket Fence I), from Night Coming Tenderly, Black (2017)

CRISTINA VELÁSQUEZ

FISCHLI & WEISS - Equilibres (1986)

LEE FRIEDLANDER - New York City (1966)

SAKIKO NOMURA -

MARTINE GUTIERREZ - Demons, Xochipilli ‘The Flower Prince,’ p91 from Indigenous Woman, 2018. C-print mounted on Sintra. 36 x 24 inches