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Unlike the snap judgments of a photo club, the book explains a logical sequence of steps to understanding. Highly recommended. As a person interested in the history of photography as well as a serious photographer, I've found this book to be a great help in getting the most out of a photograph. I found it especially helpful in reviewing photographs which are hard to appreciate for aesthetic reasons.
I had to buy this book for a class i was talking on tradional photography and I couldnt stand it, people over analyzing work it was a horrible bore. art is art
I find it very hard to read.I expected to find a book that explained how to critize photo work of other people.
For those of you who remember, Maplethorpe's photos did create a stir in and beyond the art world, and using them as an example in a book about art criticism is completely appropriate. Photographs have subjects and present content. The book is not perfect, and it is certainly not a "how-to" book on photography, but it has been and remains a competent introduction to photography criticism. Recent reviews of Criticizing Photographs strike me as biased and off-base. Yes, Barrett discusses actual photographs with actual content (to which at least one reviewer seems to object), but that's the real world. Barrett also makes an effort to place photographic art in the larger context of the international art world, which also seems appropriate given its aims.
Those sections contain good stuff, the author often gets started in chapters going along pretty good for the first 10-20% discussing photography related issues, then for someone reason abruptly gets sidetracked and heads done the road for the remaining part of the chapter obsessing about sexuality, morality, war-time incinerated bodies, mutilated humans or animals, or ones with birth defects, or other high shock value issues in art-in-general.In short, the parts about photography are very good - but most of the book in NOT about photography. It is largely a series of essays about artistic content that is NOT even photography, most of it not even mainstream art, but 99% of it is about avant garde art pushing the boundaries - what some call art, others call pornography (a woman that shoots sexually charged "artistic" photos of her naked 5 year old). This book is clearly not even about "Criticizing Photographs" as the main title states. There are many large sections that discuss homosexuality, colonialism, morality in detail, and then in the last paragraph simply mention a photo, not even commenting on it, abruptly ending the section - and moving on to the next avant garde topic.It is a good book, if you are interested in becoming familiar with many of the pushing-the-status-quo in art-in-general (not necessarily just photography), and particularly if you are interested/obsessed with sexuality and morality issues.However, this is a bad book, if you interested in "Criticizing Photographs", interested in understanding photographic images, interested in the elements of photography, interested in evaluating your own photographs, or critiquing/judging other photographs.To be fair, there are sections that touch on fundamental concepts for evalulating photographic content, meaning, etc. I would agree with a number of the other reviewers. This book is clearly not an "Introduction to Understanding Images" as the subtitle states. A substantial number of the photos are not really photos, nor original, they are "photos of art objects" and then the author goes on to describe in details what the art is trying to portray - that is the real artist is the original artist and the photographer is not an artist, just went to an art gallery or museum and took a photo of a painting or some other art object.As stated, most of the text is not even about photography.
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