4 September 1999 - photo: praise

The dilettantes have left the battlefield and I can reveal the final secret. Here it is: photo criticism is not all slash-and-burn. That’s right, to be a hardened critic, you occasionally have to like something. The heavy artillery of praise is eye-drawing theory, the superstitious belief that the picture seizes command of the viewer’s gaze. Here’s how to deploy it.

“Ooh, the staring skulls, the burning money, the converging channels of blood. See how everything in the composition draws your eye toward the neon sign, ‘Reputations Sold Here’?”