This document provides guidance for a close reading assignment on a photography-based artwork. It outlines the key elements students should analyze in their close reading, including the technical aspects of the photograph, the composition, genres, time, audience, titles, the artist and larger context. It prompts students to closely examine the photograph details and discuss how the creative and technical choices help convey meaning. Students are asked to write a 1-2 page paper analyzing a single photograph in these terms and cite specific evidence from the artwork.

1. Content Language Strategies Chart
Grade Level:
NGSS Disciplinary Core Idea
Academic Vocabulary Term
Instructional Strategy (1)
(How you will teach)
Language Development Activities to Allow Students
Opportunities to Practice and Apply Knowledge of the Terms
(2)
Term #1:
Term #2:
Term #3:

2. Term #4:
Term #5:
Reflection:

3. © 2019. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.
© 2019. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.
CloseReading_2.pdf
Close Reading Paper
Jiaxi Wang
Matt Eich’s Floodwaters from The Seven Cities
• Genre: mainly documentary combined with landscape
• Shutter Speed: high
• Aperture: large
• ISO: high
• Composition: Usage of color to emphasize implied meaning

4. • Audience: almost everyone grew up in community
• Meaning: evoke common memory
• Meaning: Sense of family, community, and memory
• Connection to the larger world: protect the environment
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CloseReading_1.pdf
Paul Cupido Mukayu, 2019
Anthony Bryce Grubbs
CORE CONCEPTS
Cupido is heavily influenced by Zen Buddhist philosophy and
centers his
practice around the concept of Mu which roughly translates to
“does not
have”. Here are a few more guiding concepts:
ephemeral moments
transience of life
the void
TECHNIQUE

5. Cupido works with different camera, scales,
and paper types to make his work, which
sometimes makes it difficult to decipher how
his work is made.
BREAKING DOWN MUKAYU, 2019
Mukayu translates to richness without emptiness
Immediately your hit with ideas like…
Silence
Peace
Depth
Void
BREAKING DOWN MUKAYU, 2019
It’s the simplicity of composition and color and really
leap out at a first glance.
The figure appears to be floating in the void under a
branch of a golden-yellow glow. The strong presence of
black brings the image into sharp focus. Because of all
of these elements I’m inclined to say this piece is more
experimental.
BREAKING DOWN MUKAYU, 2019
Cupido’s piece is reminiscent of Japanese woodblock

6. prints although there are stylistic differences, the carry a
similar energy ...
Japanese Woodblock Print,
Wild Sea Breaking on the
Rocks, 1856
BREAKING DOWN MUKAYU, 2019
How the image might have been made:
● (potentially) A long exposure, low ISO, and wide
aperture because of the strong blacks in the image
(also Cupido stated in interview that he would often
go shot at night, which would require longer
exposures to capture night time scenes)
● I’m currently leaning to the image being captured via
analog means, with some sort of post processing to
create the unique characteristics of the figure
BREAKING DOWN MUKAYU, 2019
How the image might have been made (cont ):
● I’m unsure if the tree and the figure were captured
simultaneously. I
see scenarios in which they were combined as well as taken
together.
The tree is captured in impressive detail (especially when you
look at
the original image). However, only a single section of the tree is
captured, which leads me to think that made a lens with a
smaller

7. angle of view so that it could capture that section of the tree in
more
detail. The figure is interesting because of it’s textures, holes,
and
erosions. I lean to some sort of post processing technique,
because
the figure doesn’t seem to be in motion while it is being
captured
(don’t see any motion trails or marks)
PARTING THOUGHTS..
I’d be reminisce if I didn’t bring up the discussion of
cultural appropriation here. In the case of Cupido
(Dutch) I believe that he has been influenced by the Zen
Buddhist tradition due to life events which pushed him
to learning about Zen Buddhism, and the work that has
come out of this education is maybe a way of sharing
what he’s learned. Nevertheless, I think it is important to
think about how to respectfully glean from other
cultures while making work.
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idea-for-comment.pdf
CLOSE READING
THE ASSIGNMENT

8. A one to two page “close reading” paper of a photography-based
artwork by an artist featured in a
current or recent art exhibition at a art gallery, museum, artist-
run space that is featured online. You may
briefly touch on the background of the artist, but you should
focus on a single or pair of photographs,
and give a “close reading” of a selected work discussing the
technical, compositional, genre, and
subject-matter presented. How do the creative and technical
choices made help build the meaning of
the individual work and their project overall? Provide evidenc e
by pointing to specific details in the
photograph, and stating other social, cultural, or political
context relevant to interpretation.
You must include the Photograph along with Artist, Title and
Date. The image should be a resolution
large enough for your TA to view (no thumbnails) and list the
publication or exhibition in which the work
was presented. Social Media posts do not qualify.
VISUAL LITERACY
Form + Content + Context = Meaning
Visual Literacy includes the ability to describe, analyze, and
critique meaning in the following:
• Connotative and Denotative aspects in the picture
• Technical execution of the photograph
• Creative and Artistic Gestures used by the Photographer

9. • How is the photograph in conversation with the larger world?
ASK YOURSELF
What is going on in this picture?
What do you see that makes you say that? Find details to
support your interpretation
On second and third look, what more can you find?
What prior cultural knowledge do you rely upon in order to
understand the Photograph?
GENRES
What combination of Genres is your photograph? Some genres,
or styles, may be :
Landscape, Portrait, Action, Architectural, Environmental, Still -
life, Event, Family, Posed,
Candid, Documentary, Self-portrait, Abstraction, Performance,
etc…
The Genre of photograph provide context for which Technical
and Creative and Compositional
decisions went into the making of your Photograph, and criteria
for evaluating how “successful”

10. the type.
TECHNIQUE
Put what you have learned from your Technical Exercises to
use:
How are elements of Exposure used in the Photograph? Is a fast
or slow Shutter Speed
apparent, or perhaps the grain of a high ISO or smoothness of
low ISO and what may be behind
that decision? How is Depth of Field considered?
Is the Photograph in Color or Black and White? How does that
affect the picture, and why might
that choice have been made?
COMPOSITION
How is the subject or scene framed? What is depicted and what
aspect are we shown - full or
partial, and what may be excluded from the frame?
Are there major compositional elements in the Photograph? Do
these involve scale? Light and
shadow?

11. TIME
How is the Technique of the Photograph used to place the
picture within Time ?
Are we looking at a fleeting moment? Do we contemplate
something that may have existed
long before the Photographer came across the scene, and will
endure?
Does the Photograph interrupt or extend the flow of time?
Does the Photograph preserve a moment for us to remember?
AUDIENCE
Does the Photograph address us, and how so, or not?
Does it show us something unexpected? Does is tell us that
something is important that we may
have overlooked or forgotten?
Does it ask us to feel emotion, or take a stand, or call us to
action?
TITLES

12. What is the title of your Photograph, if it has a title, and what
kind of title is it?
Titles might provide information in a straight-forward manner,
they may add to or confuse
meaning. Titles may be poetic or not. Titles may be metaphors.
Titles may provide information
that makes legible the denotative or connotative aspects.
What kind of meaning does the title make?
PROJECT, ARTIST, CONTEXT
Your Photograph may be part of a larger project by the
Artist/Photographer. If so, what is the larger
project about, what are the aims of the Artist, and how does the
Photograph make sense within the
series?
Who is the Artist and where in the world, socially and
culturally, does the work come from?
What else is happening at this time that might be helpful to
understand? Is there a topical or current
issue? Is there a political argument at stake? How does the
Artist make use of this context, or not?

13. THE UNEXPECTED
Is there unanticipated meaning in the Photograph that you find
and can support through
evidence, that might have not been planned by the Artist?
JEFF WALL - Search of Premises (2009)
EVELYN HANG YIN - Dear Ancestors, (2018-19)
DAWOUD BEY - Untitled #20 (Farmhouse and Picket Fence I),
from Night Coming Tenderly, Black (2017)
CRISTINA VELÁSQUEZ
FISCHLI & WEISS - Equilibres (1986)
LEE FRIEDLANDER - New York City (1966)
SAKIKO NOMURA -

14. MARTINE GUTIERREZ - Demons, Xochipilli ‘The Flower
Prince,’
p91 from Indigenous Woman, 2018. C-print mounted on Sintra.
36 x 24 inches
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