It makes sense to open a chapter about describing photographs with descriptions of photographs, which is exactly what the author does here. Barrett goes on to breakd down the photograph in to four parts: matter, form, medium, and style, which is how I will divide the questions I devised to guide my critique of photos in the future
Questions to ask myself as I view photos
Matter
What is the photo of? What can I see in the photo? What is missing that I might expect?
Form
How does the subject look? How is it defined? (by color? shape? contrast?) Is the subject distorted in some way? Does it look as I expect it to?
Medium
How has the artist chosen to capture the subject? What am I looking at? How was it made?
Style
What Artists does this remind me of? How does this make me feel? Does it remind me of another piece of art work? Is this intentional? What else do I know about the artist?
4.341 INTRO TO PHOTOGRAPHY AND RELATED MEDIA 