I must admit, photography is an artistic medium that I never quite had the best understanding of. With painting or performance or music it's irrefutable that the effort that goes into these works requires a motive, an agenda to express a certain idea. But, by pressing a button to snap a picture, I didn't find it as straight-forward. To me, a picture in a gallery put side by side with a picture that had no artistic implication looked the same. Until I attended the John Wood exhibit at the International Center of Photography. Our class was lucky enough to have an enlightened speaker guiding us through our experience. I learned a lot from the things that she spoke of. First, there are many more elements to a picture than I originally believed. The lighting, placement, color, countenance of human subjects, shape of the photograph, and dark-room techniques utilized are some out of many more components that are calculated when taking an expressive photograph. Also, even after analyzing all these constituent parts, the artists purpose is not as black and white as an decodable opinion. To some artists, such as John Wood, it is a far greater cause to present a photograph that prompts the audience to form their own opinion than to force his own upon them. I admired his style of photography, because I fully believe that most people's outlooks are too solidified to change past a certain point, and that it is far more productive to motivate reflection and discussion about topics. I would highly recommend his exhibit to anyone at all, because if I, an individual that knew little to nothing about photography, got something out of it then anyone can.