The Art of Self-Criticism

Iluvmycam said:

Street photography is never perfect. Sometimes if we come back with 70% to 80% of what we were after it can still be a success.

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I agree success is measure in many ways. To some, success is getting out and taking a few pictures and to others it's selling a great print for a lot of money.

But as to your percentage ratios, we also have to remember that different genres of photography have different parameters and challenges. As a studio portrait photographer, facial expression is a major concern, as is composition and making the subject look good. The impact, or love of the subject matter is built in. It's a family or a child and the buyer already loves the subject.

Street photography and photojournalism are totally different. They can hit a higher level on the appreciation scale but are harder to achieve. Getting all the elements right is far harder and luck and skill play a significant balancing role. And composition is essential.

Landscapes look easy but they too have difficult parameters to reach greatness. Composition is probably the main one and this is the area as well that great printmaking is probably more essential. Look at the raw neg of Moonlight over Hernendez. That print could have been boring without a great printmaker.

So all the genres have different challenges.

In fact landscapes may actually have the hardest challenge to be considered great since impact and emotional communication to the viewer is probably the most difficult.

SuzanneR said:

Sometimes, I find it helps to allow some time between taking a picture, and printing it. A little emotional distance can change your perspective about how you view your own work.

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I usually wait a year ...

David Brown said:

I usually wait a year ...

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Editing ones own work is important but I don't get the idea of waiting a year. For me the primary attachment to an image is the build up to actually tripping the shutter. Waiting a year before printing it loses that attachment. There was a reason why I took the image at a point in time. A year later I may have taken a thousand other images and the reason for the year old image is lost in a sea of newer reasons. Printing it as soon after taking it always works better for me. Especially if you are practicing the art of visualising what the print will look like with some pre-conceived ideas about how you're going to print it at the point of capture.

YMMV

RobC said:

Editing ones own work is important but I don't get the idea of waiting a year. For me the primary attachment to an image is the build up to actually tripping the shutter. Waiting a year before printing it loses that attachment. There was a reason why I took the image at a point in time. A year later I may have taken a thousand other images and the reason for the year old image is lost in a sea of newer reasons. Printing it as soon after taking it always works better for me. Especially if you are practicing the art of visualising what the print will look like with some pre-conceived ideas about how you're going to print it at the point of capture.

YMMV

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This sort of brings me to the practice of cropping pictures. There are a certain faction of people that always complain the cropping is for people that don't frame the perfect shot in the viewfinder. At one time I sort of agreed with them. Then one day while printing a 20x24, I always used an 8x10 sheet of paper to test the face for exposure and printed and developed that, when I started moving the 8x10 around on the easel, I began to see what was a more interesting picture.

So I got into the habit of looking at every picture and seeing if cropping, could add a more interesting composition, more drama or more impact to a picture.

Many times yes it did.

As it pertains to this thread, it seemed to be more of a habit with pictures I'd shot previously than recent ones specifically because I was now more detached from the emotion/immediacy of the shot.

blansky said:

As it pertains to this thread, it seemed to be more of a habit with pictures I'd shot previously than recent ones specifically because I was now more detached from the emotion/immediacy of the shot.

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Is it a detachment or are we all just doing things on a whim and have changed our mind at a later date. I think it's the latter but that doesn't automatically make it better. I have no problem with cropping at all. Rarely does an image actually perfectly fit any film format unless you are specifically trying to make it do so at taking time.

Noisegate said:

At what point, do you stop focusing on self-criticism and let an image stand on it’s own? I have a very nasty habit of going way overboard in terms of picking my photos a part. When I get that perfect print, I am overjoyed and think to myself that this is by far the greatest photo ever to be captured (at least for me)! Then, slowly and over a period of a day or two, the picture becomes a total piece of sludge. I’m not sure how to make this stop at a healthy point in the evaluation process. Then again, perhaps I do stop at the correct point in which the photo turns into sludge. Just curious what others may or may not do when it comes to judging their own work.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom!

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You could try to find someone whose opinions you trust, and who understands (or can learn to understand) what you're trying to accomplish with your photos. That person doesn't even have to be a photographer, or have any artistic talent of their own, as long as they can describe what they perceive as the strengths/weaknesses of a particular print.

They should also be able to handle situations where you don't agree with them. A spouse may not be the best choice.

Hi Momus,

I, too, have taken numerous shots of the same thing trying to extract what it is that I see. For me, I believe the problem is matching my "vision" with the technical skills needed to obtain the printed version. To make matters worse, sometimes I'm not sure what my vision is or at best, is too poorly defined to make sense on the printed side. Still, I take the picture...(perhaps a bit of a left over from my dark digital days...)

So much to learn.