Reading 2 Assessment Questions

1. “To interpret an image is to make sense of it. To interpret is to see something as ‘representing something, or expressing something, or being about something, or being a response to something, or belonging in a certain tradition, or exhibiting certain formal features, etc.’”

2. The author supports all of these ideas about what the message and being a photograph represents through interpretation through the reading. He defines interpretation clearly to understand exactly what it is as well as creating a quality system in order to understand reliability.

3. Barrett defines interpretation as analyzing an imagine and discovering your own viewpoint of what the photo may represent or be about. The interpretation is the being of the photograph beyond its tactile presence.

4. Interpretation is important in the criticism of photographs because it provides the reader more information about how the photograph may relate to a certain time in history or to other works of art. It provides more in depth descriptions of the photograph for the reader to fully digest and understand.

5. I was interested in the interpretive strategy of Intentionalist Interpretation. This interpretation is based off of attempting to analyze a photography by figuring out what the artist’s intensional creative purpose, meaning, or intent was when they created and published the work. This interests me because I am commonly told that art is subjective and open to one’s personal interpretation, which I completely agree with but I think this approach is worth doing. It is rare an artist makes work without an intent or vision behind the message it will portray, so I think this strategy would be very helpful.

6. The author is trying to explain that not interpretations of a photograph or art are necessarily incorrect or false, but there are interpretation that are more likely or less likely to be accurate or possible. An interpretation is not a direct opinion one gains from a photograph, rather it is corresponding and relating to content in the photograph to come to the conclusion.

7. The author is explaining how when a photographer presence an image they may believe their work has a very clear and deliberate intent but often their work reveals more than they think it is capable of. It is sometimes difficult to figure out what a photograph is about simply by viewing. Also, it is sometimes distracting and misleading when a viewer reads what an artist’s intent was suppose to be.

8. Feeling about a particular piece of art can change drastically over a short amount of time. In order to cope with that responsibility I learned it is helpful to define what my gut feeling about a photograph is quickly and see how that evolve over further investigation. Also, I learned an interpretation can be implausible or unreliable of it does not pertain to the work. An opinion cannot be wrong but there is a system to see how creditable the interpretation is.

9. The author concludes explaining how the community of interpreters is especially important when selecting the best interpretations. Each individual has had a different experiences throughout life which shapes our perspective and ultimately our interpretation of photographs.