Critique or Critical
Posting a picture can be more than a little bit frightening. Photography in my opinion is a very naked act. When you get out of the snapshot mode where your just spraying and clicking everything. Your telling people this is what I noticed. This is what I thought was beautiful,ugly interesting, bane or whatever. This touched me on a emotional level. When you let people behind the curtain your letting them see you in a profound way.
Now for most viewers they will wordlessly observe and decide if they like or dislike it. Sometimes we elicit that unsaid thought. Why do we do that? because maybe they will say something that will reveal our emotions and our feelings were translated. I think its very important to let the photograph stand on its own and not be handled when we let others view it. This can be a wonderful moment because it exonerates that we have the skill and the eye to take a moment of time and place and let others see the world in our eyes.
However this doesn't always happen. sometimes people view our presentations and can't see things the way we intended. Or maybe they can discern our intention but find so many things distracting that our vision seems cluttered or impure as it were. As a result of our request they may point this out.
Face it we all like to think we have done a good job when we present it out, so to find out that people either see the flaws we are aware or point out concerns that slipped past us we are hurt a bit. However looking past the hurt we can learn. Part of the reason for the sting is maybe there is some truth to the words. We need to be open enough to listen. By listening we tune our eye to avoid the problem in the future.
We need to remember that photography is a deliberate action and yes things may have not been perfect and we may have a good reason things aren't right. We however had the choice of capturing and later presenting that info, with that in mind we need to realize if we are trying to show something special then it needs to be special. It may require we take more time. It may require we work in post production a bit harder but that is only going to produce a better product.
A word of caution we need to stay true to our vision. Don't get caught making eye candy to win competitions or photo reviews while producing a soulless piece that doesn't reflect what is in our heart because if we do so then we are going to find the whole art to be a sham and meaningless for us as an individual.
That being said critiques that help you understand the challenges in your shots should be encouraged and you should give. Because it builds us all up. I find when someone can tell you something that works and then describe how that wasn't fulfilled or distorted it tells you what you can do. Critical comments that just slam the user I find do nothing but puff the ego of the person giving it. So I ignore those and try to give critiques that will help the listener his craft. Remember people are judging your work, the only question is are you willing to hear it.
Posting a few pictures that went down in big flames when I sent them out. One of the key elements in my pictures is that I am often more interested in the act than the participants. In the first picture I don't care who he the character is and stands in for any one and it is what he is doing, and that your observing the act which gives it's power. This is lost on most people so they immediately want to see my characters more. Well I can stamp my foot or ask myself can I illuminate him more? Objects on the left were too distracting because your eye goes to the light and so it pulls you away from the man. I was encouraged to change it to black and white to reduce the number of effects on your your eye. Which is an interesting idea.
The second picture ran into issues primarily with the wine class not being straight.... however check out the window behind which is straight. But photography is deliberate I should have fixed the glass. Secondly there were issues with the glass being dirty. However the glass is supposed to be a used glass so I thought the critiques were invalid.
The final shot was critiqued for being too dark. The point of this photo was chiaroscuro which is light coming from the darkness. But that went to show the sensibility of the audience, which is not wrong but theirs.
Now for most viewers they will wordlessly observe and decide if they like or dislike it. Sometimes we elicit that unsaid thought. Why do we do that? because maybe they will say something that will reveal our emotions and our feelings were translated. I think its very important to let the photograph stand on its own and not be handled when we let others view it. This can be a wonderful moment because it exonerates that we have the skill and the eye to take a moment of time and place and let others see the world in our eyes.However this doesn't always happen. sometimes people view our presentations and can't see things the way we intended. Or maybe they can discern our intention but find so many things distracting that our vision seems cluttered or impure as it were. As a result of our request they may point this out.
Face it we all like to think we have done a good job when we present it out, so to find out that people either see the flaws we are aware or point out concerns that slipped past us we are hurt a bit. However looking past the hurt we can learn. Part of the reason for the sting is maybe there is some truth to the words. We need to be open enough to listen. By listening we tune our eye to avoid the problem in the future.
We need to remember that photography is a deliberate action and yes things may have not been perfect and we may have a good reason things aren't right. We however had the choice of capturing and later presenting that info, with that in mind we need to realize if we are trying to show something special then it needs to be special. It may require we take more time. It may require we work in post production a bit harder but that is only going to produce a better product.A word of caution we need to stay true to our vision. Don't get caught making eye candy to win competitions or photo reviews while producing a soulless piece that doesn't reflect what is in our heart because if we do so then we are going to find the whole art to be a sham and meaningless for us as an individual.
That being said critiques that help you understand the challenges in your shots should be encouraged and you should give. Because it builds us all up. I find when someone can tell you something that works and then describe how that wasn't fulfilled or distorted it tells you what you can do. Critical comments that just slam the user I find do nothing but puff the ego of the person giving it. So I ignore those and try to give critiques that will help the listener his craft. Remember people are judging your work, the only question is are you willing to hear it.
Posting a few pictures that went down in big flames when I sent them out. One of the key elements in my pictures is that I am often more interested in the act than the participants. In the first picture I don't care who he the character is and stands in for any one and it is what he is doing, and that your observing the act which gives it's power. This is lost on most people so they immediately want to see my characters more. Well I can stamp my foot or ask myself can I illuminate him more? Objects on the left were too distracting because your eye goes to the light and so it pulls you away from the man. I was encouraged to change it to black and white to reduce the number of effects on your your eye. Which is an interesting idea.The second picture ran into issues primarily with the wine class not being straight.... however check out the window behind which is straight. But photography is deliberate I should have fixed the glass. Secondly there were issues with the glass being dirty. However the glass is supposed to be a used glass so I thought the critiques were invalid.
The final shot was critiqued for being too dark. The point of this photo was chiaroscuro which is light coming from the darkness. But that went to show the sensibility of the audience, which is not wrong but theirs.
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