Description is data gathering. It answers questions such as, What is here? What am I looking at? What do I know about what I am seeing? Descriptive statements are verifiable, and come from two sources - internal (reflected in the work itself) or external (about the artist, the process, the context). Barrett then goes through several reviews of Avedon’s In the American West to demonstrate the kinds of description on which critics tend to focus. He enumerates four categories: subject matter, form, medium, and style.
Subject matter may seem the easiest, but may not always be straightforward, as suggested in the work of Cindy Sherman. The obvious subject is Cindy Sherman. But beyond this superficial observation one may see that the subject matter is something more complicated. The photos are recreations of popular images in which Cindy Sherman is featured.
Form refers to how the subject is presented, what Ben Shahn called “the shape of the content.” Among the formal elements are such things as dot, line, shape, light, color, texture, mass, space, and volume. Among the photographic elements are tonal range, subject contrast, film contrast, negative contrast, paper contrast, film format, point of view, distance from subject, lens, angle, frame, edge, depth of field, sharpness, and focus. As this book was published before the advent of digital cameras and wide-spread use of the internet, perhaps there are a few items that were never a consideration, such as sensor size, color scheme, file format, type and size of monitor, post-processing software. (While searching to see if anyone had made such a list for digital photography, I ran across this interesting word map: http://www.mindmeister.com/29106252/formal-elements-of-photography)
Medium refers to what an object is made of, which for most photos would consist of paper and frame, or the type of monitor or screening device. It may also include characteristics of the camera, and I suppose these days the kind of software used. Some exhibits or installations, though, might include many more elements working in conjunction with photographs. It is also possible to describe materials used in creating an image. Barrett insists that accurately describing what an image is made of leads typically to describing with what effect the elements are used. This, in turn, leads to discussion of style - subject, medium, arrangement - which tends more towards interpretation than a simple list of facts.
Regarding the use of external information, Barrett says only that critics disagree about how much external information is worth using and avoids entirely (at least for now) discussions of formalism, structuralism, or deconstruction.
The penultimate paragraph is worth quoting in its entirety:
Describing photographs and reading descriptions of photographs are particularly important activities because people tend to look through photographs as if they were windows rather than pictures. Because of the stylistic realism of many photographs, and because people know that photographs are made with a machine, people tend to consider photographs as if they were real events or living people rather than pictures of events or people. Pictures are not nature and they are not natural; they are human constructs. Photographs, no matter how objective or scientific, are the constructions of individuals with beliefs and biases, and we need to consider them as such. To describe subject, form, medium, and style is to consider photographs as pictures made by individuals and not to mistake them for anything more or less.
Description is not a prelude to criticism; description is criticism.
In my own writing I have discovered this to be true. Writing is a process of discovering meaning, and how can I discover what I think if I can’t properly describe that which I am thinking about? I appreciate getting to know Avedon's American West series, about which I knew nothing before reading this chapter. A production photo from one of those shoots caused me to image something similar here. Would it be possible to build a minimal set-up - a sheet, reflectors, tripod - and shoot the residents of Satwa? It wouldn't be difficult to organize, but would require a bit of courage to set up, and require commitment to run it for six months or a year.
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