From the course: The Practicing Photographer

How to look at a photograph

How to look at a photograph

- In the early days of photography, the 1840s through the end of the 19th century, exposure times for most photographs were very long, usually because the film chemistry being used was not very light sensitive. Sometimes, slow lenses made things even worse. Consequently, a single image might have an exposure time measured in minutes. Not seconds, but minutes. And that was to get a single shot. If you've ever spent any time trying to shoot portraits, you know that expressions can change in very subtle, yet meaningful, ways in just a fraction of a second. And, if you've ever stood waiting for a slow photographer to take your picture, then you know that, while you might be able to muster a genuine smile when the photographer says ready, if they take too long to get the shot, then you can feel your smile becoming less genuine and more forced. And that shows in the final image. If it's hard to hold a genuine smile for a few seconds, then it's definitely impossible to hold it for minutes. If you look at much Victorian era photography, you might be struck by how dour everyone looks. I know that, when I look at these images, I immediately assume that the Victorian era must not have been much fun. But, the truth is that portrait subjects at the time couldn't smile because exposure times were too long. The smile was simply not a part of the photographic vocabulary of the day. If you lived at that time, you knew this. And so, when you looked at an image, you didn't project sad or dour onto the photos. You simply knew that photographic portraits didn't include lots of fleeting expression. People then had a different reaction to these images than we do now because of what they knew about the photography of that time. When it came time to take a portrait in the 19th century, your subject was in for a bit of an ordeal. Not only did they have to stand or sit for all that time, they had to hold very still. As you know, with longer shutter speeds, motion in the frame blurs. So, it was imperative that portrait subjects remain as motionless as possible. To help this, photographers sometimes employed neck braces or stands to help stabilize their subjects. Of course, there's something else that will make a portrait subject hold very still. Post-mortem photography, shooting portraits of corpses, was a very common practice in the Victorian era. Because of the required time and expense, having a portrait made was a somewhat rare occurrence. Sometimes, the only chance to capture a portrait of someone was after they had died. In the case of children, there often hadn't been time to get them to a photo studio. Remember, you couldn't shoot a child until it was old enough to know that it had to hold very still. So, a post-mortem photo was sometimes the only photo possible. On some occasions, relatives even posed with the corpse to create a family portrait. Now, today, that would be seen as macabre, but they didn't feel that way at the time. Partly, I'm sure, this was because they knew it was the only opportunity to have a shot of themselves with the deceased. But I wonder if there was something else going on. Photography as still new then. The images that most people saw at that time were paintings and drawings. And when you look at a painting or drawing, you know that it's a representation, not a perfect document. This is pure conjecture on my part, but I wonder if the Victorians were willing to shoot group portraits with a corpse because their habit of looking at a photo was to assume that photos were representational, just like paintings, as opposed to documentary, which is how we think of them now. It didn't matter to them if someone in the image was dead, because the final image looked like a family portrait. So what, if one of the people was actually dead if the image looked real. The Victorians had a very different take on lack of smile in an image and the presence of a corps in an image. I'm discussing this by way of illustrating how much we bring with us to the viewing of a photo. We project current fashion into an image and so can be confused by facial expressions that were required by the technology of an earlier era. We assume that, after a point, a photo is an accurate recording of the elements in the scene. And, if someone looks alive, we expect them to be alive. Victorians didn't necessarily have that expectation when they viewed an image. I believe that studying the work of other photographers is... I won't say necessary. But it can dramatically improve your photography. And, in upcoming episodes of The Practicing Photographer, we're going to start diving in to photo history and taking a close look at some of the great work of the past. To do that, though, we need to have some skill at looking at images. And I think that skill starts by recognizing that we bring assumptions to the process of viewing. Some things, like accepting the presence of a corpse in an image, are probably going to be things that we're not going to be able to ignore. But other things, like facial expressions, are things we can probably start to see differently if we change our viewing habits. We live, now, in an era of disposable imagery. How many photos do you see every day on product packaging, advertisements, books, and magazine covers? And that's all before you get to serious photos that you might view in a gallery or on display in someone's social media feed where there are a huge number of photos that we need to consume every day. Because of this glut of imagery, we tend to take a shorthand approach to viewing an image. We take a quick initial impression, decide whether we like it or not, and then we move on. We certainly don't expect to ever go back and look at any of those images again. Why would we? There will be a whole new batch of images tomorrow. So, the first step in learning to look more critically at a photo is to slow down. Slowing down does something very important. It stops you from looking at the image with your photographic habits. Here's what I mean. One of my first jobs was video production, mostly shooting news and public affairs programming, which meant a lot of talking heads in a studio. I had a very particular framing pounded into me and that framing never allowed for headroom. Consequently, having developed that habit, when I shoot portraits, I tend to frame tight. Recently, while teaching workshop at the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, a student presented this image for critique. Now, my immediate response was it needed to be tighter. But other students pushed back against that. I was forced to slow down and break out of my own compositional habits and really look at the image. The expression on this young woman's face is very powerful, as is her pose. And the huge, intimidating, massive black rock towering above her goes a long way to flavor her expression in a particular way. In fact, I think my interpretation of the meaning of her expression changes if the image is cropped tighter. So, I'm left with the assumption that, actually, it's good to have this extra headroom in this image. Because I really like what the student came up with. We all see the world a particular way photographically. I have ideas of composition and organization that are habit. So, when I look at a photo that isn't composed according to my habits, I might immediately think, "Well, that composition's bad." Because it doesn't match the various templates that I've learned and built up over years of shooting. It doesn't satisfy my visual habits. But, by quickly discounting the image, I'm eliminating the possibility that another photographer sees the world in a different way. I'm ignoring the fact that there are other ways to compose a scene. The composition of this woman made sense as I took the time to settle into it. Not only did I have a new appreciation for the image, it's possible that I learned new compositional ideas that I can take into my own work. If a photographer is doing their job when they have composed an image, they're guiding your eye. Some scenes are complex, though, and it might not be possible for a photographer to easily guide your eye. That doesn't mean the composition doesn't work. It just means that you need to go deeper into the image to discover what the photographer wanted you to see. Now, that's assuming the image works. It is possible that it's just a bad composition or one that doesn't work for you personally. There is no objective good or correct in photography. It's okay to not like an image. But slowing down in your viewing and engaging in a focused, concentrated way with an image might reveal things that you normally don't see. If you're looking at a portrait, think of it as you would an actual social situation. Sure, first impression matters. But even people in portraits might have more depth to them than you can initially see. Spend some time looking at their expression, their body language, their situation. Remind yourself that this was a real person. Take a moment to think about what their expressions might mean and what other feelings or situations might go along with that expression. As you connect to the subject, or don't connect, your impression of the entire photo might change. For abstract images, or even still lifes, don't worry about trying to discover any kind of literal explanation for what the objects in the scene are. You can do that later, if you're compelled. First, look at the image and see if you enjoy the arrangement of forms and textures, light and shadow. Our brains have an inherent appreciation for well-arranged scenes. That's why composition is possible at all. And an abstract image can often be pleasing simply because it's well-constructed. Actually, no matter what the subject matter, if you find a play or quality of light or arrangement of elements that is satisfying, that might be all you need to decide the image is a winner. But, again, some images might be complex or enough out of your normal way of seeing that it can take a while to decode their organization. Of course, as photographers, we can't help but notice technical things. And that's okay. Before you dive into the technical, though, it's worth taking the time to let yourself simply view the image to see what kind of emotional response you have. Let the image have a chance to work on you before you start taking it apart. When you do consider technicals, see what you can learn. What depth of field and shutter speed issues might the photographer have faced? Did they use artificial lighting? If so, where did they put the lights? If not, where did the light come from? Can you imagine how the scene might have been different from a different camera position with a different focal length? If so, can you understand why they chose to position and frame the way they did? These are all the same questions you'd ask when taking a shot on your own. There's no reason you can't ask these same questions when looking at someone else's images. Still images, paintings, drawings, photos. They used to be more precious because they were rare. Consequently, people took time to read them. What's more, they returned to them to partake of them again and again. We don't do that so much with images any more, because there's so many images out there. What's more, I think many people assume that a photo is a simple capture of a moment and so can be consumed in a moment. But a good photo is crafted in a particular way. As you should know, that craftsmanship can take time and thought to puzzle out. Sometimes, to fully appreciate an image, you need to spend time looking at it to unpack it. These are all things to think about anytime you look at an image, your own or someone else's. But these ideas will be especially useful as we start to review the work of some of the greatest shooters in photographic history.

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