Jim,

“Granted I’ve done so selectively, yet trying each that comes around and over time I’ve settled into a few that I feel best meet my needs. ”

I’d really love to hear which photo sites you ended up submitting to.

As far as comments go, I find them just like email, lots of SPAM trying to get their name on sites, with a few great comments. Don’t let the SPAM comments even get to me, and feel appreciative of those that are real.

~Tony

This is getting weird. You are the third or fourth independent photo person I know to complain about photo critiques. The first one was part of an article in the most recent “Lenswork”. The next two were two friends at the MFA program at the Academy of Art, SF, and now you. All of this beckons the question why do critiques? In my mind there are usually three reasons for bad critiques:

1) The critiquing person has no clue about photography. Especially people without any serious fine art background (“I own all Cartier-Bresson” books doesn’t count) do not know what to look for in a photograph and if you ask two “uneducated” people, you will get two very different answers. If you ask two “educated” people, the answers will, most likely, be very similar.

2) The person cannot articulate his opinion. This is similar to 1), but can also mean that even a knowledgeable photographer ends up telling you “I like it” or “I don’t like it” (which, btw, would be highest on my personal “most annoying comment” list).

3) The person does not want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I think this happens a lot at art schools and as a result you don’t get any harsh, but constructive feedback.

Overall I think that anyone who can push a button considers himself a photographer. Today, all you need is a cell phone to be a photographer. As a result you have millions of seriously uneducated people who think they are something and try to impress their opinion onto others. Consider painting! No one would dare to consider himself a critic just because they can dip a brush in a pot of color. In painting it is understood that you need a certain education to truly understand the art. Why is photography different? Because everybody is a photographer today…

Anyway, that’s my rant I had to get off my chest.

All the best,

Oskar

WOW ! GREAT!!!

To extend the discussion a bit further, if you will…

I am most definitely one of the ‘educated’ people in the big, wiggly world of photography. I don’t consider myself a photographic artist. Nor do I consider myself particularly gifted and/or talented. I’ve never had formal lessons and only know what I know through practice, experience, and dialogue. I do, however, have a deep love for wildlife and photography and take both of these very, very seriously. The act of going out in the field, finding animals, studying and photographing them, and then learning from the experience is one of the few things that sustains me on a day-to-day basis. The last stage is to then share my images and engage in dialogue. On the flip side, I love to browse others’ works and to hear their stories, to share and learn from their experiences. I come from a dialogic camp of literature that perhaps values the verb over the noun, commentary and community (dialogic interpretation) a bit more than the Monologic Perfection of a Work of Art.

So, here’s my first question: If a simple “hey, I like this a lot” doesn’t help you as a photographer, does it necessarily hurt you? Let’s say you get five comments on a discussion thread you post. Of those five, one is useful (in your opinion) and the other four aren’t. Does the slacktitude of what you value in the four bad comments negate the usefulness of the one solid comment? Or do the four loser comments just shut down the whole system…?

What I don’t understand is the near-violent reaction to those who aren’t “Artists” – those who don’t already have the lexicon and the technical know-how. Those who are just beginning. Those who are ‘uneducated’. Can’t you constructively respond to those comments to help those writers develop their own skills? But, that’s assuming the “community” isn’t elitist and for Serious-Artists-Only – and that’s a fair consideration in have in any given writing/art criticism community (I’m not necessarily ‘anti-elitist’ all the time – - sometimes you only want the ‘experts’).

I teach college composition, writing and argumentation and deal with this all the time. But rather than simply blocking out, negating or shutting down those less-aware of the value of a constructive critique, the goal of the writing community is to get perspectives from all across the board. In a writing workshop, it’s not just about what you write and what people say about it, it’s also about how to learn becoming a better reader – a more critical (positives and negatives) reader. One can’t develop writing unless one develops reading.

But then this brings about audience analysis: who are you shooting and posting for? Only for those who share the same values of photography (‘Art’ with a capital A) or those who may share values in issues like love-of-outdoors, etc (‘art’ with a lowercase a). Perhaps that’s where the break is. Perhaps if we only want productive comments on our own photographs, in our terms and values, that’s what helps shut down the extended community?

I, myself, wish to be a better photographer. I take it quite seriously and I use forums to learn and engage with others. But even more, I love the wildlife and ecological contexts of these photographs. I love the experiences people have had – the stories that go with them. How they got their shot, what type of animal is featured, etc. Is it not possible to function on both levels in any given thread? Does a poorly-developed response (in terms of technical, photographic issues) from somebody negate all the others on a thread?

I’m not really talking about they “hey, that’s kewl” responses. Those don’t engage conversationally. Nothing can come of a comment like that, other than the appropriately-shortened ‘thnx’. But I know I was slapped down a few years ago because I asked what DOF means (not, mind you, what ‘depth of field’ means – just the abbreviation). As if learning and engaging is a negative value. As if one’s world is holier than another’s. As if one’s education is more important than another’s.

So what’s the end game? Do we use the forums to simply receive comments on our own work, responders-be-damned? Or do we use them to develop a community that fosters dialogue, education, and enhanced skills?

Just a response – and I would love to hear your opinion on this.

Respectfully,
janson the uneducated! :’)

I am not an uneducated man. I hold three degrees, including a Docctorate in Veterinary Medicine. I have a great love of images. I am most definitely one of the “uneducated” in the realm of the arts (Arts?), particularly photography. But Emerson said, “Every artist was first an amateur.” I enjoy comments of all kinds at this point, because they inspire me to go and take more photos. Nothing will improve my photography at this point like more work in the field or studio. I find it interesting that any appreciation of someone’s work could be, in turn, unappreciated. Mostly because at this point I receive so little.

I’m loving this dialogue.

One of the commmon themes I see coming through is about the level of dialogue participation, not so much in the level of vocabulary. To go with your model Jim, the problem can be in the dead-ended quality of some of the comments: “hey, that’s kewl.” What can be said but “thanks”…?

Imagine six people in a room workshopping their photographs with each other. Now imagine in that room for an hour and all anybody says is, “Hey, that’s great.” “Thanks. I like yours too.” “Kewl.” “Yeah, cool.” “No, kewl.” “Yup.” It would be maddening.

On the flip side, imagine yourself in the negative fest room for an hour. “I don’t like this.” “Well, I don’t like yours either.” “Actually, this could’ve been great, but it isn’t.” “I disagree.” “Bite me.” “Where?” “Right here, pal.” And so on…

I love your list posted a ways up the page:

1. Ego Stroking (the most immediate)
2. Education / Knowledge Sharing
3. Storytelling
4. Socializing
5. Advertising
6. Inspiration

Though Ego Stroking and Advertising aren’t necessarily factors most people would want to admit to, I do believe they play very present roles in most (if not all) forum communities. Perhaps part of the way to foster a functionally productive community (for all parties) is to try to encompass (or at the very least tolerate) each of these dimensions?

In writing, the most rounded, productive discussions/debates seem to be those that encompass three major factos: the issue/argument itself, the speaker’s position and a consideration for the audience’s. If we lose the value of any of these three, the arguments tend to shut down eventually. I like the idea of applying your Six-List to my own participation in forums.

BUT, without getting all lectury (how’s that for a word?), how do we help foster this view on forums we’re currently participating with, rather than simply finding forums that already fit this model? Lead by example? Post yet-even-more guidelines? A solid community now will likely grow, and with that growth will come those who aren’t quite on the same page.

This is a fantastic discussion.

~ janson

Great list – both satirical and honest enough to make us look at ourselves in a new way. Your post on the Fred Miranda site of this has led to a pretty extensive discussion on the merits of critique in photography, and by extension, in the arts as a whole. All are free to peruse the draft copy of a paper I put together on the subject of critiquing photos on my regional website at:

http://www.scphotogs.com/articles/critique.pdf

Fantastic! Amazing!
Number 6 seems to be one of the most popular. However, I would have used the subject of cropping instead of moving forward/back.

Opinions come so easily, don’t they?

Wow. If yo cannot take shitty comments you should perhaps not pay so mucha attention to reading them. This was a sad, seemingly bitter, post about zero.
Also, it makes me think that a photographer that can spend this much time writing bullshit cannot enjoy their job that much. Rock on.

Your Top 10 list here AND the list in comment #10 above explain why I’ve stopped participating in photosharing sites. They’re mostly shallow and a waste of time. I used to participate in one called RedBubble, which I thought was different. It just became a social networking, ego-stroking site where you could depend on your “friends” to deliver the “Wow! Great!” comments and the folks who thought they knew it all to try to bring you down a notch. Heavily retouched photos were far more common than “pure” photography, which I prefer, too. Why cook up an image in Photoshop when you can work a little harder and get it right (or almost right) in your camera?

Anyway, I sound like I’m ranting, so I’ll cut this short. Great post, right on target. But the list in comment #10 says it all.

Agree on the HDR. If anyone can say “Nice HDR”, its a terrible HDR. When you get away with using HDR, then THAT is a NICE HDR!

Wow! Great! Interesting article, Tom. Your
portrait photography articles have always intrigued me but sometimes I think you need to
get closer to your subject. All those commas and apostrophes detract from
the real meat of  what you were trying to say. I also think the article
would have been more interesting if you had spent more time on how you came up
with ten reasons why you are so annoying. Why not nine or thirteen? At any
rate, your use of the article template furnished by Microsoft added to the
clarity of the article. I was glad to see that the focus of your article is right on the spot. As for
my most annoying critical comment: Your photographs are pretty good. Your
articles are far from decent.

There are differing uses for HDR among them to obtain a broader tonal range and another to accent to garishness.

You come off as a complete douche bag in this article.

A subject close to my heart – Very interesting a article!

Critiquing in a way is like performing an art; One stands in front of an audience and lets everyone know what he or she thinks about a particular piece of work/art and exposes his or her view and vision to everyone!

List of annoying things aside, do you have suggestions, protocols or a methodology to improve the status of photo critique?