Is Critique A Requirement to Learning Photography?

[jtk]

fwiw a Minor White assignment (approximately):

Take your print/prints out on the street, show to a few strangers...not anybody you know or that you think may be into photography. Ask them what they see or think. Takes the desire to learn. Those strangers provides the same sort of learning opportunity as posting in Media.

If you don't know who Minor White was, Google. Great photographer, best known as a photo teacher.

 

[blockend]

It's not about judging anyone for what they want to photograph, but just to help them get better at doing what they want. That's why I mentioned the training for critque was crucial. Once you know he's all about the gas stations, let's say, it should not be hard to help them get better at it.

How? Tell them to use the rule of thirds like everyone else? Give them the burden of f-stops and shutter speeds? People have passion and vision or they don't.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Critique can also be an informal process. Do you hang out with other photographers (or artists)? Do you gather to show your work? Do you put on exhibitions as a group? Do you have a mentor?

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Public Opinion

I count public opinion as interesting, but in most cases not very useful compared to good critique. The public always "knows what it likes" of course, but do they know how to tell you what steps to take next to achiever your vision? Not likely. Critique is not simply "like" and "don't like". It is about the why and the how to move forward. OTOH, if one's goal was something like "I just want to sell more pics to the public." Then obtaining public opinion in the form of thumbs up and thumbs down might be useful.

 

[blockend]

Critique can also be an informal process. Do you hang out with other photographers (or artists)? Do you gather to show your work? Do you put on exhibitions as a group? Do you have a mentor?

Critique is useful among ones peers. People you trust to get it and are willing to call the hits from the misses. You have to know their prejudices even then. Camera club judgement is like judging a cake baking contest. Too soft, too hard, too much sugar, not enough jam. Tick box criteria that tells you nothing except the poverty of the judge's vision.

 

[guangong]

Follow your own path. Don’t just look at photographs. Study just what makes a great painting, drawing or sculpture great. There are guidelines for composition, which is the first thing that holds a visual piece of art together. Still, Degas violated many of these guidelines in his paintings. Visit you local library and take a look at all kinds of art from all historical periods. The greatest invention of Western art was the frame. For some people composition seems to be an innate gift, like perfect pitch, but composition can be learned just as music students can learn pitch.
However, while composition is a first step (after subject, of course), there is more. So, besides composition, you have to go your own way following your own interests. This is the advantage we have over the professional.
I agree with many of the above commentators, whether at a camera club or on APUG, that in addition to useful advice you will get rants and pontificators. Better if you can share with a few good natured frank friends.

 

[eddie]

how many viewers need to “get it” for a photograph to be successful? 1? 1000? More?
While I appreciate thoughtful criticism (positive and negative), ultimately it’s up to me to decide if the work is meaningful or not.

Photography is a medium of communication. If your viewers don't "get it" you've failed to communicate successfully.
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

 

[ReginaldSMith]

How? Tell them to use the rule of thirds like everyone else? Give them the burden of f-stops and shutter speeds? People have passion and vision or they don't.

So, if you plot the distribution of all those who want to fulfill their photographic destiny, you will find a few who own so much raw intuition and talent that they will hone in laser like to what they have to do, you will find a few who possess no talent, intuition or capability, but the big part of the distribution - the average so to speak - will be people who have some of all the qualities needed, but will benefit from some guidance, suggestions for new methods, and help from critical analysis. And of course, most people know full well where they fall on that distribution curve.

 

[eddie]

I've never really bought into the communication thing.

Then what is it?

 

[blockend]

So, if you plot the distribution of all those who want to fulfill their photographic destiny, you will find a few who own so much raw intuition and talent that they will hone in laser like to what they have to do, you will find a few who possess no talent, intuition or capability, but the big part of the distribution - the average so to speak - will be people who have some of all the qualities needed, but will benefit from some guidance, suggestions for new methods, and help from critical analysis. And of course, most people know full well where they fall on that distribution curve.

Do you think people become better photographers by looking at photo magazines? They are full of clichéd tips on technique and composition. Shoot birds like a pro? They are self fulfilling prophecies in mediocrity. How do you teach someone not to be mediocre? The history of photography has been to remove it from chemists and gentlemen and put it into the hands of ordinary people. Why would you turn a powerful social tool into a technical exercise?

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Do you think people become better photographers by looking at photo magazines? They are full of clichéd tips on technique and composition. Shoot birds like a pro? They are self fulfilling prophecies in mediocrity. How do you teach someone not to be mediocre? The history of photography has been to remove it from chemists and gentlemen and put it into the hands of ordinary people. Why would you turn a powerful social tool into a technical exercise?

Who said critique was a "technical exercise?" And who mentioned "looking at photo magazines?"

 

[eddie]

Hi eddie, it is undoubtedly often about communication, but I don't think it necessarily has to be. I think it can also be about pure aesthetics, without anything to "get". But this is part of a more involved art discussion.

I think we agree. I include aesthetics in communication. "That's beautiful" is a form of communication in what I was saying.

 

[blockend]

Who said critique was a "technical exercise?" And who mentioned "looking at photo magazines?"

From your film rant I assumed you thought photography was a discipline requiring technique, rather than someone taking interesting photographs on their phone and posting them on line. A photographer like Daniel Arnold shoots on a Contax G2 or a smart phone and posts on Instagram. It's a democratic medium, like, dislike or have no opinion. 99% of photography elicits the latter, in me at least.

 

[Bill Burk]

Public Opinion

I count public opinion as interesting, but in most cases not very useful compared to good critique.

Photrio has a more photographically-focused membership than the general public, you could correlate the responses you might get in a critique here, by looking at (or knowing) the media or posts of the responder... From that you can weigh the how relevant any words of advice might be.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Photrio has a more photographically-focused membership than the general public, you could correlate the responses you might get in a critique here, by looking at (or knowing) the media or posts of the responder... From that you can weigh the how relevant any words of advice might be.

I'm new here, and I can't recall seeing anything I would call critique. In the "galleries" there's the odd "like" here and there, but not too much deeper than that. A useful critique would have to have discussion between creator and critique provider. I've never seen it work on web site. In my experience, critique that was effective was accomplished in smallish, intimate groups. "Online conversation" is a wholly different kind of communicating than face-to-face, wherein those literal facial expressions become a big part of the communication.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Just to be clear---
I am not in any way suggesting every photographer should have, or want to have, or need, or be interested in, critique. It's obviously a very personal choice, like any educational, instructive or investigative process.

 

[Bill Burk]

We have the Conversations tools here, I bet if you send eddie a message with a photo you want critiqued, you could get some good feedback on art. (Hope you don't mind being volunteered, eddie). I'd give you feedback too, if you want.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Joe is a commercial photographer.
Mary is a wedding photographer.
Sam is a street photographer.
Pete is a landscape photographer.
Jeannie is a wildlife photographer.
Bill is an artist with artistic intent.
Gloria is a fashion photographer.
George is a photojournalist.
Nellie is a portrait studio photographer.
etc.

Those would involve completely different kinds of critique. There are different traditions at work, sometimes different standards, and surely different goals. And very likely different critique providers. I know of no one who could rightly critique all those fields.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

We have the Conversations tools here, I bet if you send eddie a message with a photo you want critiqued, you could get some good feedback on art. (Hope you don't mind being volunteered, eddie). I'd give you feedback too, if you want.

Are there some existing examples of that happening here that you can point out. I'd love to see how it worked out.

 

[Sirius Glass]

An honest but constructive critique is quite often very hard to get. The one that stung the most was by a "renown" local photographer (his own words - he was possibly renown in the club scene where I come from because he worked at one of the local camera retailers) who openly said he didn't understand the image and said that it was a waste of ink. That actually hurt - but I used that for strength. The image is the first one I hung on my office wall.

Have you watched the show "Master of Photography"? Even the masters and judges they get on can be very brutle and at times not really very helpful with their critique. But, we are talking a level that I suppose we could and should hold that little bit higher than the average schmo like me!

PM a few to me and I will take the time to give constructive critique.

 

[Sirius Glass]

fwiw a Minor White assignment (approximately):

Take your print/prints out on the street, show to a few strangers...not anybody you know or that you think may be into photography. Ask them what they see or think. Takes the desire to learn. Those strangers provides the same sort of learning opportunity as posting in Media.

If you don't know who Minor White was, Google. Great photographer, best known as a photo teacher.

While the theory sound great, in practice most people do not know the difference between a snapshot and a photograph. Telling one to move closer to crop out distractions, discuss whether the subject should be in the center or one thirds guideline, sloping horizons, discussions about shadow detail, moving point of view, exposure help, ... are not going to come from people on the street. Not in real life.

 

[Bill Burk]

I invited you to a conversation around a picture so you can see the potential.

"Bill is an artist with artistic intent".

You almost got me pegged, I'd call eddie an artist with artistic intent. I'm a technical versatilist with educational and artistic intent.

 

[slackercrurster]

OP...sometimes helps, sometimes irritation.

I tried to join a local shutterbug club. I was not looking for critique, just looking for community. But they didn't want me as a member. Most of them were landscapers, sunset and flower photogs.

I did benefit when going from film to digital years ago. A lady advised me my online Tumblr was a mess. Jumbled up with all sort of things. That clued me into making dedicated websites for certain projects.

But for the most part I am not looking for critique. If you are in need of critiques, try online portfolio reviews. You can hire photogs you admire for a fraction of what it costs to go to a review on the other side of the country in a f2f to get critiques from people you may not be interested in hearing from.

 

[ReginaldSMith]

There is a kind of second-half to the question of critiques, which is: Do you have, or have you had, a mentor in photography or art?

 

[slackercrurster]

Who said critique was a "technical exercise?" And who mentioned "looking at photo magazines?"

That is how I learned back in the late 60's When my parents went shopping on Friday night I was glued to the mag rack absorbing Pop and Modern Photography.