Part 1: Analyse an Essay

For this exercise, we looked at the essay “Understanding a Photograph,” written by John Berger in 1972.

 

First, a sentence to summarise each paragraph:

Para 1: Is photography considered a fine art?

Para 2 : Not many museums hold photographs, making photography more accessible to the public.

Para 3: Works of art are valuable property.

Para 4: Images are infinitely reproducible, and therefore have no property value.

Para 5: A photo shows a message about the event it records.

Para 6: Why did the photographer choose THAT moment to record?

Para 7: Differences between photography and painting – painting involves arranging things.

Para 8: What gives the photo meaning may depend on the observer’s understanding of the background.

Para 9: The moment the shutter is pressed is what is recorded.

Para 10: Painting interprets the world in a different way, photography has no language of its own.

Para 11: Choosing the moment to preserve within a continuum.

Para 12: What is present and what is absent are both important in a photo.

Para 13: The message may be very simple.

Para 14: Photos are a view of reality that may be used against us.

 

Summarising his paper into one sentence: Photography is unique, and shouldn’t be judged in the same way as painting, sculpture and other fine arts.

 

John Berger is known for his socio-political stance. How is that reflected in his argument?

He makes reference to social class, and ‘nobility’ owning works of art, and of this being out of reach to the general public. At the end, he also talks about using photography as a weapon, which could be seen as political.

 

Are you convinced by Berger’s argument? If not, why not?

Not really, but the main reasons are to do with the fact that the article is 40 years old and the digital age has changed things considerably. Museums and galleries also seem to have more photography now, and it seems to be taken as a form of art. There is also a lot more digital manipulation, and this can be seen as unreal, in the same way potentially as painting might be seen. I also disagree that photography has no value as it is easily reproducible, again this is not always true, many images can be sold at auction for a high value.

 

What is your opinion of Berger’s writing style?

At first, I found the essay quite hard to read as it was a bit old fashioned. Some concepts have changed so much today that from that aspect it was also quite hard to read. It also requires a fair amount of concentration and reading through in order to get the overall message.