Reading comp PrepTest 139 · Section 3 · Question 11

Topic: Humanities

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Jayne Hinds Bidaut revived tintype to photograph insects from her collection.
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Bidaut drawn to tintype because it contains detail and dimensionality (fourth sentence)
    • Paper prints too flat (third sentence).
  • Tintype is an image captured on a thin, coated piece of iron (fourth sentence)
  • Author’s attitude: “struck by” (first sentence); “set out” (second sentence); “too flat” (third sentence); “detail and dimensionality” (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Dan Estabrook uses albumen prints and tintype in nostalgic fantasy.
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Estabrook deployed albumen prints and tintype to create old-looking images, imagining leaving them at flea markets and antique shops to create past that never existed (second sentence)
  • Author’s attitude: “inspired a fantasy” (first sentence); “to be discovered” (second sentence); “bygone time” (second sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Growing trend among photographers: reviving old photographic techniques.
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Types of old practices being revived: tintype, daguerrotype, albumen, pinhole cameras, emulsions from nineteenth-century recipes
  • Widespread popularity of old techniques
  • Author’s attitude: “forward into its past” (first sentence); “coax new expressive effects” (second sentence); “so diverse” (third sentence); “groundswell” (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Current appeal of old techniques is their unreliable, idiosyncratic results.
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Old techniques were prone to accident and results not easily replicable; that was why they were abandoned in the past (first sentence, third sentence)
    • Unique results of old techniques are why modern photographers like old methods; they can put an individual stamp on each picture (second sentence, sixth sentence)
      • Example: Estabrook (seventh sentence), who uses old techniques to create illusion of age in his prints (eighth-tenth sentences)
    • Author’s attitude: “heavily hands-on” (first sentence); “source of their appeal” (second sentence); “prime reason” (third sentence); “as a curiosity” (fifth sentence); “the very uncertainty” (sixth sentence) “embraces accident” (eighth sentence); “illusion of antiquity” (eighth sentence); “project onto it” (ninth sentence); “sense of nostalgia” (tenth sentence)

Paragraph 5

• Paragraph note
  • Photographers motivated by desire to create unique works and recover intimacy with photography.
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Old techniques offer photographers opportunity to create unique works made during a specific moment in time (second sentence)
  • Old techniques allow photographers to be more hands-on than usual in today’s mass media world (third sentence)
  • Author’s attitude: “preoccupation with contingency” (first sentence); “virtually guarantees” (second sentence); “indelible mark” (second sentence); “recovering an intimacy” (third sentence)

Main Point:

In a surprising trend, many photographers are embracing old, idiosyncratic, and labor-intensive photographic techniques in an attempt to revive intimacy with the photographic process and produce unique, one-of-a-kind images.

Paragraph 1, Sentence 4 (P1 S4) - Aesthetic appeal of tintype for Bidaut

P2 S1 - Nostalgic appeal of albumen prints and tintypes for Estabrook

P3 S3 - Trend among photographers toward old techniques

P4 S1-2 - Reasons old techniques are appealing

P4 S7 - Estabrook’s reasons for using old techniques

P5 S2-3 - Two motivations of photographers using old techniques

Phenomenon/Explanation - This passage uses a Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure. The author begins with two examples: Bidaut and Estabrook, and then states the wider trend that those two photographers exemplify, namely, a growing usage of old image-making techniques among modern artists. Next, the author returns to Estabrook’s aesthetic and cultural preoccupations before arguing that the photographers engaging in the old technique trend are motivated by two important things: a desire to create one-of-a-kind images that could only have been made in a specific time and place and a desire to rediscover intimacy with the photographic process that is missing from today’s mass media-dominated world.

The minor Meta-Structure evident in this passage is Example. The author uses the examples of Bidaut and Estabrook to illustrate why photographers utilize old techniques and then names various photographic techniques that are being revived to give the reader an idea of what kinds of methods the avant-gardists are using.

It could be argued that the main Meta-Structure of this passage is in fact Generalization/Example, because the passage is heavily laced with examples. However, the point of those examples is not just to illustrate a general statement, that photographers are returning to old techniques, but to illuminate why photographers are doing this in an otherwise heavily technology-laden artistic landscape. The author paints this trend as a surprising mystery, not just a statement of fact. As a mystery, this trend deserves an explanation, which is what the author gives in the final paragraph and what the examples of Bidaut and Estabrook illustrate.

Understanding the author’s explanation of the photographers’ motivations for using old techniques is key to understanding the author’s argument. The examples of Estabrook and Bidaut are important not only because they illustrate the trend toward old techniques but because they show the diversity of motivations behind artists’ usage of those techniques: Bidaut is trying to accomplish a specific aesthetic goal and Estabrook is trying to create new experiences for people viewing old-looking (but actually modern) photographs. The factors drawing such diverse artists together are the desire to create unique images and the desire to recapture a sense of hands-on creativity with a medium that is becoming increasingly impersonal.