Critique Day

I studied Photojournalism at the University of Texas back in the 1970’s, an era when photography was half art and half science. Nobody could go out on a sunny afternoon and snap a few hundred photos with their smart phone or digital camera in hopes of capturing a single good image. I shot actual film and processed that film in chemicals that probably weren’t beneficial to my health.

More important, film and photo paper were expensive, so I was frugal with my choices of what to photograph. Getting the proper exposure and snapping an interesting photo was only half the job. Printing that photo with the perfect cropping, exposure, and contrast was the other half.

My class typically got a photo assignment on a Tuesday and had a week to find the perfect subject matter, create a compelling photograph, process the film, and print and mount the final image. Then, came the dreaded critique day.

I should mention that college campuses were dramatically different in two major respects back then. First, college professors were more intent on passing along their respective skillsets than influencing their pupils’ politics. Second, there were no safe spaces. College campuses were ground-zero for free speech. Anyone could say anything to anyone else without fear of reprisal, and that’s what made critique day so intimidating.

On critique day, students would hang their photo assignments — usually two or three images per student — on the walls of the classroom and the professor would emcee a group discussion about each student’s work. With thirty-five students, each vying for recognition, the criticisms were brutal. It was no place for anyone with thin skin.

I learned a lot in those sessions and only a fraction of it was about photography. Frankly, that’s where I learned to play poker. I learned how to keep my face passive while visualizing what it would be like to slash some loudmouth’s bicycle tires after class. I also learned what hot-buttons each student suffered from and the optimum time to push them. Perhaps, most important, I learned that all those opinions bore absolutely no impact on the outcome of grading — and by extension, the quality of my life.

On Thursdays, the professor would lecture — sometimes about the technical aspects of photography, but sometimes about the aesthetics of good imagery. He would often show examples from famous photographers like Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Yousuf Karsh, and Paul Strand. He would also share from their writings about photography. It was in one of those sessions that I learned what I really wanted to write about today.

On a particular Thursday, the professor was showing a collection of images from Paul Strand, a noted American photographer from the early twentieth century. Strand produced some fascinating images and developed an approach to photography that minimized emphasis on the photographer’s style while maximizing attention to the essence of the photograph’s subject.

On this particular Thursday, the competitive atmosphere of Tuesday’s critique day still hung in the air and two especially vociferous knuckleheads began criticizing Strand’s imagery as they might critique another student’s work. It was the only time in three years I ever saw that professor get angry.

He pointed out that our obsession with the deficiencies of the work we observed, was the very obstacle to our ever learning anything. He went on to explain how approaching any subject — whether it be a piece of art or a philosophical debate — from the perspective of “what was good and right” within the subject matter was the only way we would ever shed the emotional baggage of our own egos and being to see objectively. Any fool could point out problems but only a studious observer could recognize the good behind the problems and begin to grasp the wider perspective.

I gave five years of my life and a lot of my money to the University of Texas, but that one simple lesson, which wasn’t even the subject of the day’s lecture, has proven to be worth every dime and minute I spent at that institution. Maybe you’re shaking your head at my grammar or tiring of my less-than-concise presentation. Forget all that and reread the previous paragraph. If you comprehend and internalize the truth of that old professor’s insight, everything else is just the popcorn to go with the show.

A meeting of great minds who think alike