Types of Photographs

Barrett's types of photographs from Chapter Four

Descriptive - Explanatory - Interpretive - Ethically Evaluative -
Aesthetically Evaluative - Theoretical

These categories and many of the examples given come from
Terry Barrett. Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Undertanding Images 1990, Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA For more information and better explanations you can see the book in our library or purchase a copy through Amazon.com


A question for "Art for Children" college students: How could I teach elementary school children to use a camera in a way to that would make photographs related to one of these types without showing examples from these photos before the children do their work?


note: Some Internet links to images are included here.
These are generally not the same images published in the Barrett book.
Descriptive Photographs (Barrett's term)
Photos that make a record of something
Examples: portfolio slides, photographs of the moons surface, the cave paintings of Lascoux, medical X-rays, your photo i.d., security camera images

Explanatory Photographs (Barrett's term)
Photos that help us understand something that is hard to see without using a camera.
Examples include the scientific work of Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Edgerton.
Photos by Bill Owen and Mary Ellen Mark help use understand society and people.

Explanatory examples
Muybridge animations
http://www.ediblebrain.com/muybridge.htm
Muybridge work and history
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/Muybridge/

Explanatory
HAROLD EDGERTON 1903-1990
http://www.wirtzgallery.com/exhibitions/2001/exhibitions_2001_11/exhibitions_he.html
Explanatory Bill Owens
http://www.billowens.com/.htm
Explanatory Mary Ellen Mark
Indian Street Performers. India 1981 cat no 207X-001-001
http://www.maryellenmark.com/frames/gallery.html

Interpretive Photographs (Barrett's term)
Made, not taken
Directed and/or Manipulated
examples:
Jerry Uelsmann, Duane Michals, Anne Brigman, Gertrude Kasebier

Jerry Uelsmann Chairs 2001Interpretive
http://www.uelsmann.net/indexframe.html

Anne Brigman
1869-1950
The Water-Nixie
1914 / ca. 1940, reworked from earlier negative gelatin silver glass interpositive
http://www.geh.org/ar/strip81/htmlsrc/brigmanetal_sum00002.html

Gertrude Kasebier , (1852-1934)
Image has been identified as Agnes Rand Lee, and the "heritage" bitterly referred to is the sudden death of her daughter Peggy. [Anastasia Wilkes, Art in America, November 1992]
http://www.geh.org/taschen/htmlsrc6/m197100420033_ful.html#topofimage

Ethically Evaluative Photographs (Barrett's term)
Ethically Evaluative
Photos that praise or condemn
Try to produce improvements in society
Examples:
Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans (Farm Security Administration work),
Jacob Riis (labor & housing conditions),
W. Eugene and Aileen Smith (Minamata), Carrie Mae Weems and Gordon Parks (racial injustice)
W. Eugene Smith  Toimoko in Her Bath Minimata, Japan 1972     22" x 16" http://www.rit.edu/~arton/photographs/smith_toimoko.html

Jacob Riis Home of an Italian Ragpicker 1888

Carrie Mae Weems (racial injustice)
http://www.gregkucera.com/weems.htm
See No Evil, 1997 Color photograph 20 x 24 inches Edition/15

Susan Sontag “Looking at War: photography’s view of devastation and death.” The New Yorker. December 9, 2002.  pp. 82-98.
See this source in Library or purchase at newstands.

Aesthetically Evaluative Photographs (Barrett's term)
“. . beautiful things photographed in beautiful ways. . . nude . . . landscape . . . still life.” Barrett, pg. 64
examples:
Robert Maplethorpe, Irving Penn, Edward Weston, Imogene Cunningham, Ansel Adams, Minor White, Henri Cartier-Bresson , Gary Winogrand

Theoretical Photographs --Barrett, page 68 (1st edition)
Photography about photography
examples:
Cindy Sherman film stills, Joel-Peter Witken work about historical art, Sherrie Levine copies of Walker Evans & Edward Weston, Les Krims book Making Chicken Soup .

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #13. 1978. Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/sherman/index.html

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #3. 1977. Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York. http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/sherman/index.html
Theoretical Photography about photography

Sherrie Levine copies of Walker Evans

Joel-Peter Witken -  Cover photo for Love and Redemption
Photography about photography Theoretical
http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/witkin2/



Also see Photo Judging Criteria
Link to:  A form for classmates to use when conducting a photo class critique by Marvin Bartel
Also see Types and Categories of Photographs
Link to:  What is a Strong Photographic Composition ?  by Marvin Bartel
Link to:  A form for classmates to use when conducting a photo class critique by Marvin Bartel
Link to:  A Rubric for artwork assignments
Link to:  A Rubric for learning in Art History
Link to: An Artwork Critique Form
Back to: Assignments page


All rights reserved.  This page is posted solely for purposes of review by students in the instructor's Art for Children class at Goshen College.  Questions? - e-mail Marvin Bartel
posted 12-11-02