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Critiquing Photo Challenge: Pro Gallery
Descriptive: My photograph of pkhali is descriptive because its purpose is to show customers what it looks like when they purchase it from Supra, a Georgian restaurant, in Washington D.C.
Explanatory: My photograph is of my sister jumping up. This picture is explanatory because it shows that when one jumps, both legs are up in the air.
Interpretive: My photograph is interpretive because it allows the viewer to draw a conclusion as to what is going on. The background of a village, along with the emotions of the child makes one think about what is going on and what factors are contributing to such a drastic effect.
Aesthetically Evaluative: Kristina Makeeva's photograph pictures the sakura trees in bloom with Mount Fuji in the background. This photo is aesthetically evaluative because it captures the beauty of the landscape in Japan while enhancing the bright and subtle colors of the sky, trees, and mountain.
Ethically Evaluative: The photograph by Dorothea Lange is ethically evaluative because it shows a mother embracing her children as she looks out with hopelessness. It also makes the audience learn about the impact of the Great Depression on families.
Theoretical: The photograph by Ken Josephson is theoretical because it uses a prop of an infant's face in front of the back of its head. The use of a facial feature allows the photograph to hold a deeper meaning as, without the prop, there is no way to tell what the emotions of the infant are.
Critiquing Photo Challenge: Text
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For my presentation, I chose to focus on the work of Dorothea Lange. She is most known for her documentary photography focusing on portraits of displaced farmers during the Great Depression, creating an environment of social change by capturing raw human emotions during these crises. Most of her work consist of ethically evaluative photographs as she brings attention to the public of these social and political issues as she humanizes them and how it impacts everyday people. Her work ranges from times including the Great Depression and the Internment of Japanese Americans. By using techniques such as moving portraits and various angles, she was able to capture the raw emotions of individuals during times of crisis. It is easy to dismiss and ignore words in a newspaper article. However, the ability to visually see the impact how these issues have on people and their livelihoods change the mindset of the audience. That is what Lange did. She was an activist fighting for social change. I chose to focus on one image from her work, where it depicted a Japanese family with their belongings waiting for a bus after being forced to leave their lives.
Dorothea Lange’s work helped me to become more aware and empathetic of social and political issues that occur around me. I think it is safe to say that everyone in some way has been affected, or they know someone who has been affected by an event. From her work, I realized that using photography to document these events is so powerful in the sense that it captures information in a way that cannot be fully conveyed through words. It is able to create strong emotions out of the audience. This class made me take this realm of photography for granted as I never appreciated how a camera can document such important times in our lives, that otherwise would be only understood through words. I previously only associated photography with happiness such as landscapes, still life, portraits, or anything that we come across as joy. However, Lange’s work has proven that photography plays a pivotal role in journalism and how it can become a strong tool to use when documenting our history.
Critiquing Photo Challenge: Text
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