For your final critical analysis, you will be writing about a photograph made by artist Gregory Crewdson.

Write 5 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image.

Read this short biography for Crewdson before you write: 

​Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for staging cinematic scenes of suburbia to dramatic effect. His surreal images are often melancholic or disturbing, offering ambiguous narrative suggestions and blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, thanks to the artist’s painstaking preparation of elaborate sets, lighting, and cast. “My pictures are about a search for a moment—a perfect moment,” Crewdson has explained. Born on September 26, 1962 in Brooklyn, NY, the artist works with large production teams to scout and shoot his images. His work has been exhibited widely, notably including solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in New York, the San Diego Museum of Art, and White Cube in London, among many others. A 1988 graduate of the Yale School of Art, he has served on its faculty since 1993 and is currently the director of its graduate studies in photography. The artist lives and works in New York, NY.

Today you will be writing about a photograph by artist Lori Nix. This image is from her series titled The City.

Write 4 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image.

Before you write, read the artist statement:
​
I consider myself a faux-landscape photographer. I build meticulously detailed model environments and then photograph the results. Through the photographic process, the fictional scene is transformed into a surreal space, where scale, perspective, and the document of the photograph create a tension between the material reality of the scene and the impossibility of the depicted narrative. In this space, between evidence and plot, the imagination of the viewer is unlocked, engaged, and provoked. I want my scenes to convey rich, complex, detailed, and, ultimately, open-ended narratives.

Several common themes prevail throughout my work: the constructed photograph, the landscape in turmoil, and danger married to humor. I present these elements as the raw materials of stories with messages, but without conclusions.

The photographs I create do not reflect the tradition of the grand idyllic landscape. Rather than showing the beautiful or heroic vista, I look to the darker corners of life. I am interested in the forces of entropy, in the ruins left in the wake of human pretense of grandeur. My scenes are usually devoid of people, and this emptiness becomes an important element. In this way, the impact of civilization is shown by what remains in the absence of humans. Evidence of humans may still be visible, but the cause for their absence is left unclear, allowing the viewer to complete the narrative.
​
In my current series The City, I focus on the ruins of urban landscapes. I have chosen the spaces that celebrate modern culture, knowledge, and innovation: the theater, the museum, and the library. Here the monuments of civilization and material culture are abandoned, in a state of decay and ruin, with natural elements such as plants, insects, and animals beginning to repopulate the spaces. This idea of paradise lost, or the natural world reclaiming itself, becomes more forceful as we face greater environmental challenges in the world around us.

Today you will be writing about a photograph from artist Brandon Thibodeaux's project When Morning Comes.

Write 5 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image
   

Read the project statement before you write:
​
WHEN MORNING COMES
When Morning Comes is a reflection of life in the Mississippi Delta. I first traveled to the region in the summer of 2009 because I needed to breathe after my own troubled times. I was in search of something stronger than myself and attended its churches not to photograph but to cry and be redeemed and to just be a part of the place. I was there to listen as I prayed for a revelation.

Over the past seven years I have witnessed signs of strength against struggle, humility amidst pride, and a promise for deliverance in the lives that I’ve come to know here. This is a land stigmatized by poverty beneath a long shadow of racism. I do not wish to overlook this fact but rather look between it for evidence of the tender and yet unwavering human spirit that resides within its fabric.

I photograph in five communities that span roughly 40 square miles of the northern Mississippi Delta. Villages with names like Alligator, and Bo Bo, as well as the country’s oldest completely African American city, Mound Bayou, where in 1910, a New York Times headline once declared, “no white man can own a square foot of land.”

In what began as a journey for personal exploration is found a narrative of another man’s faith, identity, and perseverance. I see the strength of a single man while acknowledging the machine that replaced thousands, the flight of childhood innocence grounded by the scar of life hard lived, a living room altar to a symbolic president and a toppled white king in a conquered game of chess.

While this work makes specific reference to the rural black experience, I am reminded with every visit that these themes of faith, identity, and perseverance are common to us all. These are the traits of strong men. And maybe that is the lesson I was looking for all along

Today you will be writing about an image by artist Cig Harvey.

Write 5 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image

Complete in class. If you do not finish in class, you must complete this for homework by midnight.

Today you will be writing about an image from artist McNair Evans' series Confessions For A Son.

Write 4 paragraphs, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image.

Read the Project Statement before you write:

​Summary
Confessions for a Son juxtaposes photographs I made in 2010 and 2011 concerning the lasting psychological landscape of my fathers legacy with images taken by him roughly 40 years ago to explore a complex relationship between father and son and the disappearance of an American, agrarian way of life.

Statement
There was no man that my father admired more than his father, and no one his father admired more than the man who raised him. With tenderness of heart and warm humor my father met everyone as his equal.

Upon his death in November 2000, I was exposed to our family businesses insolvency. Dad faced a series of devastating fires, bad crops, perpetual over-extension and high-interest loans. Five generations of familial and financial stability fractured. While the economic effects were immediately obvious, the emotional implications lingered beneath the surface for nine years.

In 2010 I returned home to photograph the lasting psychological landscape of Dad’s legacy. Retracing my father’s life, I used photography to comprehend its events. Visiting the farms where we hunted, his college dorm rooms, and his oldest friends, I photographed his family members and businesses while researching his character and actions. I could not equate these.

These photographs narrate my journey between isolation and acceptance. Initially confused and angry, I grew to know him as a teenager, college student, co-worker, life-long friend, and father who lovingly withheld business realities. I witnessed shortcomings and successes and found empathy with a man who faced so much in his life. His sacrifices cost the ultimate price, and accepting that some questions may never be answered, I grew to love him again.

These works share my emotions after his death, my search to learn more abut him in recent years, and a journey of acceptance and forgiveness. These pictures are my way of saying its OK. Everything that happened is done and it’s OK. They are my way of taking ownership of everything that I felt, and all the anger and all the shame, and saying, “Yes, I felt that, and it’s OK to feel that, and I still love you.”

Today you will be writing about artist William Wegman, best known for his photographs of his Weimaraner dogs.

Fist, navigate HERE to watch a short video interview with Wegman.

For your Critical Analysis, you will be writing a 4 paragraph (5 sentence minimum) response to the VIDEO.

Here are some things to consider as you write:

• What kind of photographs does Wegman make? What camera/equipment is he known for using?
• Consider your own experience as a photographer. What are some obstacles that might be associated with photographing animals?
• What does Wegman say are some things that influence his work?
• What does Wegman compare his video pieces to?
• Do you like or dislike William Wegman's work? Why?

​Click HERE to view a selection of Wegman's photographs.

Complete in class. Four paragraphs minimum; five sentences per paragraph.

Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image.

Your analysis will be graded on:​

• meeting minimum length requirements  
• depth of organization
• evaluation of the content
• grammar/punctuation

​Good luck!

For this week's critical analysis, you will navigate to the Elements of Design tutorial on the class website, which can be found HERE, or by hovering over Technical/Tutorials at the top of this page.

On this page, you will note several different visual examples (photographs, paintings, sculptures, etc.) for each element of design. Your task is to choose 1 example within each element and write 1 paragraph explaining how the given element is incorporated into the image/painting/sculpture/etc. You will do this for each element of art, making 8 paragraphs total. Your paragraph must be 4 sentences minimum per paragraph. When you are writing, be sure to list the name of the artist whose work you are referencing. 

​Here is an example:

SPACE

This is a photograph by an artist named Stephen Shore. This image uses the design element of space because space is implied within the billboard itself, but also the area around the billboard. The billboard shows a depictions of a mountain range landscape, suggesting infinite space, even though it is enclosed by a rectangular frame. There is also infinite space surrounding the billboard, as the clouds, landscape, and mountain range reach off into the distance. 

Your analyses will be graded on the following criteria:

• grammar/sentence structure
• depth of analysis
• organization of thought (don't ramble)
• meeting minimum length requirement

If you do not finish in class, you must complete this for homework before class on Friday. Do not overthink this—just write about what you see. Good luck!

Complete in class. 4 paragraphs minimum, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph. 
Remember, refer to your "How to See" handout for analyzing a photograph--

1. Describe specifics.
2. Describe technique and form.
3. Describe the content.
4. Evaluate the image.

Your analysis will be graded on:​

• meeting minimum length requirements  
• depth of organization
• evaluation of the content
• grammar/punctuation

​Good luck!

For your first critical analysis of 2017, you are going to read this New York Times article about artist Nicholas Nixon and his project titled The Brown Sisters. For 40 years, Nixon photographed his wife and her 3 sisters, always in the same order.

WIthin the article, you can see all 40 years worth of images of the Brown sisters. Read the article, study the images, and write a 4 paragraph (5 sentences minimum) response to the series of photographs and text. This response should be your opinion—describe what you think about the entire series of images Nixon has made. Also, bear in mind that even though you are responding to a photographic series, you may still treat this in the same way that you would anayze a single photograph:

• Describe what you see.
• Describe the formal qualities of the work (composition, line, light, etc).
• Describe the content (what themes do you see in this series?).
• Evaluate the series. Do you think it is successful? Why or why not?

Here are some things to consider as you respond:

• Why would Nixon choose to photograph his wife and her sisters for 40 years?
• Why would the sisters agree to be photographed for this long? 
• How is photography a useful medium to depict the passage of time, as opposed to another medium such as painting?

Your analysis will be graded on your depth of organization and evaluation of the content, as well as grammar/punctuation. 

​Good luck!

​Complete in class. 4 paragraphs minimum, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph.

In addition to answering the descriptive questions on your "How To See" handout, consider how the image was made. Describe some of the tools the artist might have used in order to create this image.

What are some things the artist might be trying to communicate through this image?

​Complete in class. 4 paragraphs minimum, 5 sentences minimum per paragraph.

4 paragraphs minimum, 5 sentences min. per paragraph. Believe it or not, this is a self-portrait. Consider what steps the artist had to take to make this photograph happen. How does the reflection function in this image? What does it suggest about the person being photographed?