- Read two texts above (John Szarkowski’s introduction and review by Jed Pearl) and select 3 quotes form each that is relevant to your essay.
- Select two images, one that represent a mirror and another that represents a window as examples to use in your essay.
- Use some of the key words that you listed above to describe what the mirrors and windows suggest.
My three quotes from Jed Pearl’s review:
- ‘A photograph provides, to use Szarkowski’s word, an “autobiographical” response to a realist situation.’
- ‘Much of the work included in the show is meant to strike us with its surprising imagery – a private vision so riveting as to leave a permanent imprint on the mind.’
- ‘that use of the medium, by its very nature, presupposes a “generous and inclusive acceptance of fact, objective structure,” and that the selection among these facts is the romantic, personal opposite’
My three quotes from John Szarkowski’s introduction:
- “The distance between them is to be measured not in terms of the relative force or originality of their work, but in terms of their conceptions of what a photograph is.”
- “is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?”
- “a mirror – a romantic expression of the photographers sensibility as it projects itself on the things and sights f this world; or as a window – through which the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality.’
Essay plan
Introduction (250 words): Reflect on the origin of photography and describe in your own words the difference between the two photographic processes, Daguerreotype and Calotype. Consider how they could be viewed as either a mirror or a window of the world according to John Szarkowski’s thesis. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s text and comment if you agree or disagree.
Paragraph 1 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a mirror and analyse how it is a subjective expression and staged approach to image-making. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review which either supports of opposes Szarkowski’s original point of view. Make sure you comment to advance argumentation in providing a critical perspective.
Paragraph 2 (250 words): Choose an image that in your view is a window and analyse how it is an objective expression rooted in the notion of realism. Choose one quote from Szarkowski’s thesis and another from Jed Pearl’s review and follow similar procedure as above ie. two opposing points of view and commentary to provide a critical perspective.
Conclusion (250 words): Refer back to the essay question and write a conclusion where you summarise Szarkowski’s theory and Pearl’s review of his thesis. Describe differences and similarities between the two images above and their opposing concepts of objectivity and subjectivity, realism and romanticism, factual and fiction, public and private.