Critique Methodology

This critique methodology was created specifically for 2D and largely photographic work, but can be applied with modifications to any kind of work?

1. What is in the photograph? What is not in the photograph?

2. What kind of photograph is it?
black-and-white (various processes), color, digital, video grab, Polaroid, etc.
what genre of photograph is it? portrait, landscape, journalistic, documentary,
fashion, commercial, still-life, poetic,

3. What are the formal considerations of this image? (see *** below)
Are the graphic elements appropriate?
How does your eye move around the image?
What are the technical considerations?, do they help or hinder?

4. What is the photographer's audience(s)?
art, commercial, school, self, family, friends, web, etc.

5. What is the quality of the photograph?
emotional, philosophical, poetical, metaphorical, didactic, political, etc.
sad, angry, demanding, loving, hopeful, condemning, etc.
what elements created these qualities?

6. What does the caption (language surrounding) and context of the photograph reveal?
Is it part of a series? How does this photograph relate to others

7. What is the overall content/meaning?

8. What was the photographer's intention?

*** What is a formal element? Formal elements are the visual and graphic qualities of composition, camera exposure, and printing that are our tools as photographers. Painters use paintbrushes, canvas, turpentine. You might think a photographers tools are the camera and enlarger, and in that you would be right, but in addition, we have the more subtle tools that affect the picture itself: focus, light/shadow, framing, balance, contrast, etc.
We are so used to seeing photographs in newspapers and magazines and billboards and TV and even family pictures as conveyors of information within clearly defined social institutions. These pictures communicate simple one pointed messages in their intention, even though they often have complex social, economic and cultural implications hidden within them. As artists, most of us intend to communicate more complex layerings of information that may include not just good looks or well fitting jeans or a great beer, but emotional resonances or political concerns or personal histories or poetic reflection.
The important thing to remember here is that formal elements are meaning. At the same time, formal elements create meanings.

A partial list of form elements to consider:
Focus: Depth of field, sharp or selective focus
Motion: Sharp or blurred
Light: where is it coming from, direction (Front, side, back)
what quality does it have? soft, direct, diffused, harsh, natural, artificial
Shadow: what creates the shadows?
how dense are the shadows, how much detail is in the shadow
Contrast and tone: Full scale or high or low contrast
Texture: emphasized or minimized
Framing: cropping -- what is in the edges of the frame, a very important place
Perspective/viewpoint: eye level, above/below, unusual
compressed, expanded space
Space: positive/negative space
Line/Mass: curved, straight, horizontal, vertical, diagonal
heavy, light, bulky, fill frame, empty frame
Balance: symmetry/asymmetry
Print quality
Size of print
Color of paper: warm or cold tone
How is print displayed: framed, matted, tacked, other?