Are you prepared to say you don't like someone's pictures?

[Chris101]

Originally Posted by Fireboy

uh oh, when I post my NSFW stuff, there's not much dialogue following them. Either people here are from the bible belt or my work is crap.

When that happens to me, I assume that y'all are just in awe.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Chris101

When that happens to me, I assume that y'all are just in awe.

Yep, me too ... I feel it's best to have a healthy regard for one's own work

[Roger Hicks]

[quote=randolph45;1961226]

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

Or there are lots of people who just don't do critiques.

What's NSFW?

Cheers,

R[/QUOTE

Rodger
It's not safe to view at
work

Ah, thanks. Must be a somewhat flexible definition, though.

Cheers,

R. (no 'd')

[Pablito]

for a reasonable fee.

[emraphoto]

Originally Posted by Pablito

for a reasonable fee.

damn, i wish i said that

[Benjamin Marks]

Originally Posted by I Love Film

Nobody here has ever taken criticism well and/or is even capable of realizing the limits of their ability.

Hahahaha. That is the funniest thing I have read in a while. Also wrong.

Ben Marks

[icebear]

Originally Posted by I Love Film

....Nobody here has ever taken criticism well and/or is even capable of realizing the limits of their ability. ...

Originally Posted by Steveh

Perhaps a little bit of an over-generalisation??

Originally Posted by Benjamin Marks

Hahahaha. That is the funniest thing I have read in a while. Also wrong.

Ben Marks

1x ???
and
2x +1

[Dylan Hope]

Ever since studying photography more in depth I've started to try take a less personal view of other people's work, I can usually see where someone is coming from and what they were going for and take it from there, though I will say whether or not I'm a fan of the overall style - no point critiquing a post-modern portrait like you would a modernist one, and I'd tell someone shooting tonemapped landscapes that I really don't like that style but I won't trash it because of it. I do throw in a little bit of personal stuff but that's usually if it looks unintentionally crooked or something minor like that.

But that's only if someone asks, a lot of work on here is personal and is just keeping memories so there's no point critiquing that. I get pretty rough critiques from other places I go to so I think I could probably handle a tactful critique from the people around here

[FrankS]

Tone mapped, is that like HDR?

[Dylan Hope]

Originally Posted by FrankS

Tone mapped, is that like HDR?

Yup, but HDR doesn't always mean tonemapped. Tonemapping is what most people think of when they think HDR though, the almost CG rendered look

[fstops]

After a decade or so, a friend who really considered himself a great artist-photographer decided to make prints and sell them. Of course the result was a disaster. Only those whom he knew, including me, bought a print or two from him out of sympathy, no one else cared for his work. He also had a shock when he saw his work printed and realized it was no good, let alone being OK or even mediocre, it was just low-level very unskilled photography.

Since that episode he changed. he lost his confidence and that belief he had. Now he shoots little and when he shoots you know his just going through the motions. he used to photograph with a smile, now its with a resigned and unenthusiastic look.


Moral of the story, no one ever honestly told him that his work was no good, including me. And despite his intelligence he was somehow blind to actually apprise his own work.

Sometimes criticism is all we need to "wake up", either to change and improve or simply move on. That bit of criticism coming late in the game is the worst outcome and people who hide from criticism eventually reach that point one day because reality always intrudes and balances things out, that is how nature works.

Just in second or third year of photography I was contemplating making a book and I really felt like a photographer, now I laugh when I think about it and I laugh even more when I look at my photos from then.

[Chris101]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Yep, me too ... I feel it's best to have a healthy regard for one's own work

I'd rather be different than good, so I need to be my biggest fan.

[gb hill]

I try to look for the positive behind the photo. There is a reason why the shooter pointed & snapped the shutter at a certain scene.

[Turtle]

I'm happy to comment and be honest, if it is invited. Otherwise, why bother?

As for saying what I think, this is easy. After all, I don't like quite a few of my own photographs.... so it is just a question of being tactful, yet expansive at the same time. I also think it is important to separate out personal taste issues from other forms of constructive criticism.

[Teuthida]

Compelling photography very rarely consists of photos in isolation. Unity of vision, sequencing, narrative are all equal in importance to the aesthetic of any given photo.

Internet critiques often involve single images or groups of images without any coherent structure. Usually because the photographer hasn't yet learned the importance of coherence of a body of work. Critique on this level is basically futile.

What I see here are usually images presented in isolation. People who post want some acknowledgment that their pictures are "nice" ie. aesthetically pleasing. Nothing wrong with that, but it's such a limited understanding of the medium and its what ultimately you need to transcend in order to discover your own way of seeing things. And discovering your own way of seeing things, paradoxically, is often retarded by considering what others think.

[Roger Hicks]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Compelling photography very rarely consists of photos in isolation. Unity of vision, sequencing, narrative are all equal in importance to the aesthetic of any given photo.

Internet critiques often involve single images or groups of images without any coherent structure. Usually because the photographer hasn't yet learned the importance of coherence of a body of work. Critique on this level is basically futile.

What I see here are usually images presented in isolation. People who post want some acknowledgment that their pictures are "nice" ie. aesthetically pleasing. Nothing wrong with that, but it's such a limited understanding of the medium and its what ultimately you need to transcend in order to discover your own way of seeing things. And discovering your own way of seeing things, paradoxically, is often retarded by considering what others think.

This is an intriguing thought. Even great single images from people like HCB and Ronis are part of a body of work, an individual way of seeing -- but as they don't have to appear with that body of work, I suspect they can be critiqued in isolation. But pictures can't be critiqued in the company of other unrelated pictures. From http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subsc...0critique.html

HAVE A THEME

...Or two. Or at most three. Don't show a random selection of your best pictures: a portrait, a flower study, a couple of sports shots, five landscapes, two still lifes and three reportage shots. A single theme is usually best but if (for example) you want some guidance on the direction you should be taking, then two or even three themes can be all right. But it is impossible to form any sort of judgement on a mish-mash of different pictures.

I'm not arguing with you: merely thanking you for giving me something to think about in a way I'd not considered it before.

Cheers,

R.

[Jamie123]

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

This is an intriguing thought. Even great single images from people like HCB and Ronis are part of a body of work, an individual way of seeing -- but as they don't have to appear with that body of work, I suspect they can be critiqued in isolation. But pictures can't be critiqued in the company of other unrelated pictures. From http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subsc...0critique.html

HAVE A THEME

...Or two. Or at most three. Don't show a random selection of your best pictures: a portrait, a flower study, a couple of sports shots, five landscapes, two still lifes and three reportage shots. A single theme is usually best but if (for example) you want some guidance on the direction you should be taking, then two or even three themes can be all right. But it is impossible to form any sort of judgement on a mish-mash of different pictures.

I'm not arguing with you: merely thanking you for giving me something to think about in a way I'd not considered it before.

Cheers,

R.

I do agree to some extent with Teuthida on the importance of sequence and narrative in photography especially since this relates to my preferred photographic medium (photo books) but I would be very wary of making any generalisations on the basis of my own preferences.

The kind of photographic work that is among the most highly regarded on the art market these days, i.e. work such as that of Gursky, is all about the single picture.
Also, while you're right one can probably critique pictures by HCB singularly whithout looking at other images in the sequence, this is not something one should generalise. It's understandeable that 'decisive moment' photography produces images that can stand on their own but not all photography works like this. One of my favourite recent photo books, Ron Jude's 'Lick Creek Line', starts out with five consequitive images of water splashing in a river. None of the images is remarkable by itself but that sequence, IMO, is a powerful way to set the stage and the water is almost audible.
Your 'Have a theme' point is certainly important but, again, I would be wary of saying that a mish-mash of different pictures cannot work. Roe Ethridge's recent book 'Le Luxe' is a wonderful mish-mash of all sorts of pictures and while this kind of ecclectic 'all-over-the-place-ness' is probably the most difficult thing to pull off, I think he did it. I can't say it's my favourite book of last year but it's certainly very interesting.

[Teuthida]

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

This is an intriguing thought. Even great single images from people like HCB and Ronis are part of a body of work, an individual way of seeing --

HCB is really the exception to the rule, I think. His images are so densely packed with information and aesthetic cues that they stand on their own. I also think his fame is a function of his historical moment. He is celebrated, rightly so, as someone who invented photography as pregnant moment. He "discovered" a certain use for small, handheld cameras and developed an aesthetic around that use. I would argue that the aesthetic itself was his theme. Given past history and the ongoing ubiquity of instant photography, that "theme" is closed to us.

[Jamie123]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Given past history and the ongoing ubiquity of instant photography, that "theme" is closed to us.

I'd be careful with such assessments that rely on a teleological concept of art history. None of us knows what the future holds and just because something is 'over' for the moment doesn't mean it's never coming back. Granted, I pesonally cannot imagine how this particular kind of work could be done in an intersting way today but then again, the world is not limited by my lack of imagination.

[Sparrow]

It seems blindingly obvious that the appreciation of any photo is conditional. If the person viewing an image is unaware of its provenance or are seeing it out of context they will offer a different opinion on it than they would if they knew the artist or the story surrounding it.

In the summer of 2010 my daughter and I did lots of galleries as a preparation for her first term at art-college. Her views on what she saw were really interesting, I don't think she would hold those same views now because for better or worse she will be conforming to the consensus of her peer group. Just look how silly that Flickr delete-me criticism group looked when judging HCB's photo of that cyclist by normal criteria

[Jack Conrad]

Beyond a few technical details, it's my very important opinion that criticism primarily teaches criticism, which inevitably leads to an authoritarian state filled with technocratic managers and homeowners associations.

[Roger Hicks]

Originally Posted by Jamie123

I do agree to some extent with Teuthida on the importance of sequence and narrative in photography especially since this relates to my preferred photographic medium (photo books) but I would be very wary of making any generalisations on the basis of my own preferences.

The kind of photographic work that is among the most highly regarded on the art market these days, i.e. work such as that of Gursky, is all about the single picture.
Also, while you're right one can probably critique pictures by HCB singularly whithout looking at other images in the sequence, this is not something one should generalise. It's understandeable that 'decisive moment' photography produces images that can stand on their own but not all photography works like this. One of my favourite recent photo books, Ron Jude's 'Lick Creek Line', starts out with five consequitive images of water splashing in a river. None of the images is remarkable by itself but that sequence, IMO, is a powerful way to set the stage and the water is almost audible.
Your 'Have a theme' point is certainly important but, again, I would be wary of saying that a mish-mash of different pictures cannot work. Roe Ethridge's recent book 'Le Luxe' is a wonderful mish-mash of all sorts of pictures and while this kind of ecclectic 'all-over-the-place-ness' is probably the most difficult thing to pull off, I think he did it. I can't say it's my favourite book of last year but it's certainly very interesting.

Highlight 1: But do Gursky's tableau pictures exist outside the context of his body of work? Is he not, to be brutal, a fashionable artist? Think of the rise and fall and return of Alma-Tadema.

Highlight 2: My argument was solely in the form of 'what to do if you want a critique of your pictures' and I think I'd stick with it from that particular viewpoint. I completely agree with everything else.

Cheers,

R.

[ruby.monkey]

Yes if a) the poster has asked for critique and b) I can provide a more constructive response than "it's crap and I hate it!"; otherwise, no.

[Jamie123]

Originally Posted by Roger Hicks

Highlight 1: But do Gursky's tableau pictures exist outside the context of his body of work? Is he not, to be brutal, a fashionable artist? Think of the rise and fall and return of Alma-Tadema.

Highlight 2: My argument was solely in the form of 'what to do if you want a critique of your pictures' and I think I'd stick with it from that particular viewpoint. I completely agree with everything else.

Cheers,

R.

Yes, but what I meant was that a Gursky picture is not a fragment of a larger art work. One picture is a single art work and you can look at all the art works he makes and then form a judgement on his merit as an artist but the point of a single picture does not rely on that of another (for the most part). In a book that's constructed narratively, however, the pictures are often meant to take you from one point to another in a specific sequence. The book is the art work and it's made up of a bunch of images. Judging an image individually would be akin to picking out one sentence from a story. It might be a great sentence or it might be a boring one but neither judgement says much about whether or not the story is good.

Anyways, I'm just making examples here and I'm simplifying a bit but the main point I'm trying to make is that 'it's all about the sequence' is just as wrong as saying 'it's all about the single image'. It can be either one or a mix of both, there's not one 'essential' way to do photography.

As for your second point, I do agree that if you want a critique of your pictures you should have an idea of what you're trying to achieve with the pictures other than showing that you can make pretty pictures. But I think making any kind of limitation in relation to suject matter (i.e. variety thereof) or style is too narrow a view. Of course the more you move away from structural, topical and aesthetic unity (does that make sense??), the harder it is for the viewer to 'read' the work but I wouldn't say it's impossible.

[Roger Hicks]

Originally Posted by Jamie123

Yes, but what I meant was that a Gursky picture is not a fragment of a larger art work. One picture is a single art work and you can look at all the art works he makes and then form a judgement on his merit as an artist but the point of a single picture does not rely on that of another (for the most part). In a book that's constructed narratively, however, the pictures are often meant to take you from one point to another in a specific sequence. The book is the art work and it's made up of a bunch of images. Judging an image individually would be akin to picking out one sentence from a story. It might be a great sentence or it might be a boring one but neither judgement says much about whether or not the story is good.

Anyways, I'm just making examples here and I'm simplifying a bit but the main point I'm trying to make is that 'it's all about the sequence' is just as wrong as saying 'it's all about the single image'. It can be either one or a mix of both, there's not one 'essential' way to do photography.

As for your second point, I do agree that if you want a critique of your pictures you should have an idea of what you're trying to achieve with the pictures other than showing that you can make pretty pictures. But I think making any kind of limitation in relation to subject matter (i.e. variety thereof) or style is too narrow a view. Of course the more you move away from structural, topical and aesthetic unity (does that make sense??), the harder it is for the viewer to 'read' the work but I wouldn't say it's impossible.

Highlight: Sure. What intrigued me is the question of how far, in fact, we normally do judge a picture in the context of a body of work. Some pictures transcend a body of work; others are heavily dependent on a body of work (fashion).

Second para: I think we are saying pretty much the same thing, with the qualification that without some form of unity, there's rarely much the critic can say.

Cheers,

R.