Use specific claims from at least two of the critical texts we’ve read as a lens to analyze a contemporary public photograph or static advertisement (no video). Your analysis should lead you to make an insightful argument about what the image communicates (beyond the obvious) and how it’s communicating this.
ADVICE
● Choose specific claims from two of the four critical texts we’ve read so far:
○ Rachel Syme’s “SELFIE”
○ bell hooks’s “In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life”
○ Teju Cole’s “The Superhero Photographs of the Black Lives Matter Movement”
○ Susan Sontag’s “In Plato’s Cave”
● Choose a photo that you’re interested in but don’t fully understand, something you find striking, strange, and/or confusing. It should be something you can make a bold claim about that moves beyond the obvious or expected observations about it. What do you see that few others would?
● Describe the photo in rich, concrete, sensory detail throughout, not just in one paragraph.
● Analyze each moment of description. This is how you arrive at claims about it.
● Avoid arguing about the intentions of the photographer. It doesn’t matter here.
● Avoid making claims about truth/falseness or good/bad or positive/negative. Instead, specify. Rather
than claiming that a photograph lies (all photographs lie, to some degree!), claim instead what the
photograph communicates that might not be obvious, and why it’s important to understand that.
● Explain your reasoning. Be clear how you’re moving from descriptive evidence to claim.
Sample Solution
