Institute for Arts and Media

  • banner lesson1

Guide for Viewing and Analyzing Photographs

Observation/Description

  1. What do you see in this photograph?
  2. What is the setting? Where? When? Date? Season?
  3. What is the action or activity in the photograph – what seems to be taking place?

Reaction/Reflection

  1. What do you like about this photograph? Why?
  2. What do you dislike about this photograph? Why?
  3. Does the photograph make you feel any kind of emotion? Why, and what it is about the photograph that makes you feel that?
  4. Does the photograph make you think any kind of thought? What, and what it is that makes you think that?

The People

  1. Who would you say are the main figures in the photograph?
  2. What do we know, and what can we find out, about these people?
  3. What might be the relationship between the main and minor figures?