Terry Barrett

Terry Barrett's, Photographs and Contexts, encourages photographers and its viewers to consider context of images. A photograph can be interpreted many ways, as explored through the several ways Robert Doisneau's photograph of a man and a woman drinking wine was used as a visual aid to a prostitution article as well as a displayed in a typical gallery setting. Barrett highlights the importance of context in a gallery space stating that it is more about the artist who took the photograph or the comparason of artist rather than the content of the photograph. He delves into the expectations of aesthetic pleasure in photographs, especially in photojournalism: "'...they document the suffering which causes our indignation- and distances us because they are superb photographs of Agony, conforming to surrealist standards of beauty.'" Barrett also critics the idea that a picture acts as a type universal language or communication. He states that different cultures obtain different meanings and interpretations of a single image. A picture may be worth a thousand words but those words could be contradictory and vastly different form one another. Barrett's challenges the conventional views and expectations of photography. It made me realize that I take interpretations and context of images, including my own, for granted.

"Is Doisneau's photograph equally about cafe life, alcohol abuse, prostitution, the art of photography, and seduction? Are any of these wrong? Are all of these fair? Which of these are the most plausible, enlightening, accurate? What follows are concluding considerations concerning photographs, contexts, and interpretations..."