The Language of Photography.

To learn the technical aspect of photography is important, and many people are teaching that. But I wished more people were talking about the visual aspect of photography and the creative side of photography or how to talk about photography and positively critique a photograph.

I used to think that “My photos will speak for itself”. But find out that we live in a world with words, We talk to each other, We evolve telling stories and sharing information with words. And hopefully is going to come the time as a photographer where you need to talk about your work, write an artist statement or a proposal or to answer a question about your photography.

Everybody understands that photographies are subjective. They come from each and our own insides, perspective and opinion. How then to make it a little more objective to talk about and make constructive feedback?.

The good news is that learning the language of photography is a skill, is not something that comes naturally. I have been asked my opinion about an imagine and I dint know what to say, or how to say it; A part of "I like it or don't like it".

I learnt at university that to start talking the language of photography we need to recognise some parts of the photograph. Here is a life-saving graph on Photography vocabulary to keep in mind, to use it for projects and very useful to talk about yours and other photographs in a constructive way.

One of my teachers added a fifth area: What do you draw (extract, deduce, take) from the photograph?

If you want to read more about words and photographs this is a great article: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/aug/04/writing-about-photography-robert-adams

Hope this helps you in your future works.

Be Happy!

Raquel.

Resources: https://www.photopedagogy.com/uploads/5/0/0/9/50097419/photography_vocabulary_support.pdf