Briefly summarized, I start by inflicting a different "found" photograph -- mostly anonymous snapshots -- on each participant, asking for a short spontaneous response, and leaving the room.

I leave because this initial assignment seems problematic enough without the addition of my physical and psychological presence as a distraction. This opening exercise generally takes place during the first hours of a workshop, or during the first class session of a semester; so the people I'm working with don't yet usually have much sense of who I am, how I work in an educational context, and so forth. Thus they have no idea as to what might "please" me and what might not. I'd rather not have them worrying about that. I take myself out of the space so that they can focus on the problem, and on the picture.

Upon my return, I indicate that during the course of our time together they'll write about this artifact from four standpoints: description, formal analysis, interpretation, and evaluation, in that order. We'll treat their first, impromptu commentary on it as a diagnostic tool -- a way of finding out which of these four aspects of critical functioning they favor. And I define those aspects as follows.

To talk usefully about anything, we have to identify the subject of our discussion, and gather together whatever data we can that pertains to it. In the case of a particular photograph that we have in hand, that involves the task of description. What do you actually see when you look at a photograph? I propose to my students and workshop attendees that, for purposes of this exercise, we restrict the territory of description to only that which can be pointed to and specified as present in the image or inherent to the object in which it's embodied. That is to say, in the picture reproduced here we can see what appear to be two adult males in shirts, with slight smiles on their faces, standing in broad daylight before a low fence and some bushes or trees,with several small buildings and a car in the background. Both are balding. The man on the right in the image wears a short-sleeved shirt, and a watch on his left wrist. And so on.

Note that there's no interpretation involved in this, nor any evaluation. Who these men are, what relationship they have to each other, what their smiles, proximity, dress, body language and environment suggest are irrelevant to this phase of our inquiry; so is anyone's judgement in relation to the quality of this image. We've concerned ourselves strictly with what it's a photograph of, not what we think it might be about -- with its contents, but not its content.

However, a photograph exists not only as an image but also (except for slide projections and digital imagery) as an object. Most photographs we encounter, even on the printed page, come to us in some tangible, physical form. So a part of the task of description is careful scrutiny and annotation of the physical nature of the object in question. It's my experience that few people initially take the trouble to identify any of what they can actually see and identify in the photograph, beyond what they assume at first glance is its main subject of interest. Of those that do, even fewer mention any distinguishing characteristics of the object itself. At best, they employ vague, general terms like "small," "old," and such. Most do not trouble to indicate whether the picture is monochrome or color; square, rectangular, oval, or other-shaped; whether it has scratches or other notable marks; or whether there's anything written or printed on it, front or back.

Yet there's much for us to learn from the physical-object aspect of a photograph. The tools, materials and processes employed in its production shape the image in many ways; and the choice of those methods tell us something about the photographer as well as about the image. (Think of the differences among the silver-gelatin prints of Edward Weston, Weegee and Joel-Peter Witkin, and the ways in which encountering their works "in the flesh" informs us about their relationship to the medium.) In this case, the deckle edge, the pull tab on the right-hand side, the slight fading on the bottom edge of the image where the fixative-coated squeegee missed the emulsion, the batch numbers and the word "Polaroid" printed on the back identify these precisely and help us date the image approximately.

In formal analysis, we turn from naming the contents of an image and specifying its physical characteristics to questions of image structure: that is, to considering how the image functions as a visual structure, and how the work's object nature interacts with that. If we take away the names of the things depicted -- their denotative and connotative aspects -- and our reactions to those, if we consider the image as a complex system of lines, shapes or forms, tones or hues, how does it direct our eye to move through it? What do we attend to first, and why? What do we see as related, and why? What suggests itself as most important? What's eventful, what's incidental, what's simply part of the "necessary texture of irrelevant detail" that the lens gathers?

Much of this depends on the basic principles of graphic design, which I will not attempt to synopsize in this space. Nor do I do so in my seminars and courses; many of my students have already engaged with those ideas in graphic-design courses, and the rest can find them more effectively presented in any number of basic texts on that subject than I can manage in a brief classroom review. I do utilize them when we discuss specific examples, but I think it's more important to point out some specifically photographic issues that intersect with but are not usually counted among graphic-design principles: placement of the highlights, depth of field/selective focus, framing, comparative size within the frame, proximity to the picture plane, the illusion of eye contact, and several more. In this case, all those factors -- along with central placement, size within the frame, and others -- let us know with relative certainty that the two men in the middle of this image are the primary subject of the image; and the proximity and similarity of their shapes suggest that the relationship between the two of them should be seen as the image's primary event.

In formal analysis we also look again at the physical nature of the photograph as object, but this time with the goal of observing the effects on our attention of its physicality. Does it emphasize or de-emphasize its object nature? Is it cold-toned or warm-toned? Does it engage the sense of touch (as do, for example, images printed on hand-sensitized "art" papers)? Does it thereby draw attention to the surface of the print, as such works often do, and two-dimensionalize the image, or does it encourage one to project into the image space as a three-dimensional illusion? Does it draw attention to itself as a hand-made artifact (as do, for example, the prints of Witkin), or does it imply a more "neutral," mechanical system of production? Does its physical size ingratiate itself with the viewer, or intimidate instead?

For example, in this instance the presence of that perforated pull-tab evokes the physical process involved in making such an image; the streak along the lower edge, where the fixative goo missed the emulsion, draws attention to the physical surface of the print and reminds us of its two-dimensional aspect; the print's size encourages hand-holding of the object.

What we're looking for are what I call the strategies of facture that underlie the image's construction: the determining aspects of the photographic technology used, plus the decisions, conscious or not, of the picture-maker, the cumulative consequences of which make the image/object look the way it does and persuade us to pay attention to it in comparatively predictable ways. Casual amateurs of the kinds who most likely generated the photographs I use in this exercise cannot be assumed to have deliberately made any of these results happen, of course, and cannot therefore be held fully responsible for them. But, by treating these pictures as if their makers had operated consciously and purposefully, with full control of the craft, we prepare ourselves to think critically about the activities of working photographers, who we must hold fully accountable for all aspects of their output, and to all of whose craft decisions we're obligated to attend as critical viewers.

Description and formal analysis, therefore, are fact-finding missions, data-gathering processes. Like good detectives in the Sherlock Holmes/Sgt. Joe Friday mold, we're taking into account all the available facts about the work before we begin to interpret or evaluate it. That's where we'll pick up next time.