Critiquing and Judging

[robbins.photo]

Since I started this thread, let's see if we can steer it back to rules and critiques. Do you perceive the "rules" to be a) mental structures that the OCD need to bring "order" to their images, or b) useful guidelines that derive from an understanding of art, or c) arbitrary dictates from the "experts" that only serve to support the "experts" biases, or d) proven techniques that work most of the time if applied judiciously, or e) some or all of the above or f) none of the above, or g) oh, go away - this is getting really annoying?

Yesterday, our photo club had a "members' night" where members presented their chosen projects in a 4-minute AV presentation. They ranged from a presentation of someone's travel in an airplane, to a study of lamp-posts, to exploration of reflections, to someone's documenting the growth of his kids, to... well you get the idea. Some of the presentations were very moving, others were rather boring. I was looking for some guiding principles as to what attributes the individual images had that really grabbed my attention. In all cases, the technical aspects of the "good" images were excellent. But what set the images apart were the artistic elements of surprise, novel viewpoint or perspective, clear and obvious subject matter, and consistency of view (as in lack of competing or distracting elements). Many of these images were accompanied by the audience reaction ("wow", intake of breath, etc.) so it was clear that the really good images affected many people at once.

Now there is the other issue that "popular" images are not necessarily the same as "good" images. Images of cute animals are always popular, but few are "good" from an artistic point-of-view. Sunsets are popular, but again, not particularly original. Images of attractive people (both male and female) are always popular, but again, not original or necessarily good art. What guidelines do YOU use to decide whether an image you see is "popular" or "artistically good"? Should there be other categories as well?

Um... can I revise my answer to "No Comment" or are we a little late on that a this stage? Rotflmao

 

[pgriz]

You can do whatever you want. What happened, happened. Going forward, the choices are to start anew, or unbury the hoss and start beating it again. But you'll get looks from the bystanders if you do the latter.

 

[robbins.photo]

You can do whatever you want. What happened, happened. Going forward, the choices are to start anew, or unbury the hoss and start beating it again. But you'll get looks from the bystanders if you do the latter.

Fair enough, let the hoss be dead. So let it be written, so let it be done. As with most things I generally tend to look for the levity. But in the spirit of that I'll forgo responding any further myself and let the others weigh in from here.

 

[slow231]

had he said instagram filters, or HDR, no one would have batted an eye. many people feel like these processes add no valid aesthetic value. what follows quite naturally from this viewpoint is that use of these techniques (since they have no inherent value) is to conform to some arbitrary floating standard. this blind conformity to an invalid standard is what is mocked as "posing".

no one has an issue with him having the opinion, but they do with what naturally follows from that opinion. weird.

personally I don't like b+w. i see my world in color, and probably one of the must beautiful things about it is the color. i like my images in color, just my aesthetics. perhaps the one thing i don't like about robbins.photo's first post is that his distaste should have nothing to do with the trends and motivations of other photographers. I don't care if there are 10 or 1000000 people using the technique (correctly or incorrectly). if it's aesthetically interesting it works for me. I kind of like instagram filters and hdr....

 

[amolitor]

a) mental structures that the OCD need to bring "order" to their images, or b) useful guidelines that derive from an understanding of art, or c) arbitrary dictates from the "experts" that only serve to support the "experts" biases, or d) proven techniques that work most of the time if applied judiciously, or e) some or all of the above or f) none of the above, or g) oh, go away - this is getting really annoying?

I choose e), or if you prefer a) through d).

There is stuff that works, and stuff that doesn't work. The "rules" as taught to photographers are generally cut-down simplified rules of thumb which tend to edge a picture nearer to what works, and away from things that don't work. There are textbooks that will happily just teach you what works, though, should you choose to read them. When "rules" do you mean? (rhetorical question).

Whether they're merely randomly generated expert opinions, or derived from principles or art, or whatever, hardly matters. When they're applied consistently, when people believe them, they produce work that looks like that, and people like it. Social norming occurs.

If a rule came down from wherever that said every picture needed to have a coffee cup in it, and if that rule was sufficiently widely accepted, then over time pictures would all start to have coffee cups. People would start to expect coffee cups in pictures. Then they'd start to like them, and not like pictures without coffee cups in them. After enough time, the coffee cup would be submerged as a cultural symbol of some sort. It started out with no meaning at all, perhaps, perhaps it was just a joke from some Power That Was, but now 100 years down-time it's a powerful symbol of the 2013-2042 period of photography and a picture made with a coffee cup connects with that era, and with all the meaning and emotional power connected to that era.

There are neurological arguments, arguments about "how the brain works" but these are often pretty much bankrupt. One might argue that something basic like a high-contrast area tends to draw the eye, due to the wiring of the brain. Ok, maybe. A leading line draws the eye in one direction or another. Ok, maybe. Or maybe we follow lines and look at high contrast spots because we've learned that there's often something interesting at the ends of lines and in high contrast spots. Ultimately, who care? These are techniques that work to manage the user experience of a picture, in today's culture. Use 'em if you want.

ETA: I happen to have just written a longish essay on ideas loosely related to this: http://photothunk.blogspot.com/2013/11/intersubjectivity.html

It's even longer and more impenetrable than the stuff above, so, be warned.

 

[gsgary]

Well as long as we can be adult about the whole thing - you know, avoid being snotty and personal, sure, why not.. rotfl.

Im only stating a fact, if you shot artistic photos you might use B+W


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So it's ok to cheap shot the heretic, perfectly justifiable.. lol.. got it. Must be nice to be able to rationalize things like that, not an ability I have ever possessed myself. I do have some regrets in all of this, apparently some people took my commentary personally, which was never my intent. So yes, that I do regret. Had I known this was such a hot button issue I would have done things differently.

Oh, and since apparently you are not aware of it, what I choose to share on Flickr is actually only a small portion of the pictures I take and I've chosen to share mostly just my wildlife photography for my own reasons. However I do shoot a lot of other things as well, including what I'm assuming your referring to when you say "artistic" photo's. I guess I could launch into a huge tirade about how apparently you are attacking all wildlife photography as being "un-artistic" and "unworthy" but I really can't - even though it would really just be turning the tables. I'm just not capable of that level of intellectual dishonesty. Sadly it' doesn't look like you can say the same.

But I guess in the long run it's not that it really matters one iota, I am naught but a worthless heretic after all. So by all means, continue with your ad hominem personal assaults and feel perfectly justified in doing so, since you are embarked on a crusade to defend the true faith thus making all of your actions perfectly acceptable, right? I mean why bother with things like truth or reason or even minimum standards of decent behavior, not when faced with heresy of the highest order.

I guess the most ironic thing about this is that you are defending B&W on the basis that it is some awesome media of artistic expression, and yet in doing so you feel compelled to viciously attack anyone that isn't 100% completely in lock step with the "popular" view, which to me would pretty much be the antithesis of artistic expression. Have to admit that one gave me a pretty good chuckle.. lol.

Sorry but that does not class as wildlife i just like to stir things up a bit

 

[robbins.photo]

Im only stating a fact, if you shot artistic photos you might use B+W


Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk 2

So it's ok to cheap shot the heretic, perfectly justifiable.. lol.. got it. Must be nice to be able to rationalize things like that, not an ability I have ever possessed myself. I do have some regrets in all of this, apparently some people took my commentary personally, which was never my intent. So yes, that I do regret. Had I known this was such a hot button issue I would have done things differently.

Oh, and since apparently you are not aware of it, what I choose to share on Flickr is actually only a small portion of the pictures I take and I've chosen to share mostly just my wildlife photography for my own reasons. However I do shoot a lot of other things as well, including what I'm assuming your referring to when you say "artistic" photo's. I guess I could launch into a huge tirade about how apparently you are attacking all wildlife photography as being "un-artistic" and "unworthy" but I really can't - even though it would really just be turning the tables. I'm just not capable of that level of intellectual dishonesty. Sadly it' doesn't look like you can say the same.

But I guess in the long run it's not that it really matters one iota, I am naught but a worthless heretic after all. So by all means, continue with your ad hominem personal assaults and feel perfectly justified in doing so, since you are embarked on a crusade to defend the true faith thus making all of your actions perfectly acceptable, right? I mean why bother with things like truth or reason or even minimum standards of decent behavior, not when faced with heresy of the highest order.

I guess the most ironic thing about this is that you are defending B&W on the basis that it is some awesome media of artistic expression, and yet in doing so you feel compelled to viciously attack anyone that isn't 100% completely in lock step with the "popular" view, which to me would pretty much be the antithesis of artistic expression. Have to admit that one gave me a pretty good chuckle.. lol.

Sorry but that does not class as wildlife i just like to stir things up a bit

Promised PGriz I'd drop it and I have, but if anyone feels the need to continue hashing this out or over or in whatever manner they feel it needs to be hashed feel free to PM me.

 

[limr]

Amolitar - first with the sushi and now with the coffee cups At least this time I actually have a cup of coffee on my desk. Last time, I had to wait hours before I could have sushi!

I agree with (D) a little bit of everything. It's hard to explain objectively explain a subjective judgment and so we need things - call them 'rules' or 'guidelines' or a 'rubric' or whatever - we can use to quantify and address specifically that result in a positive or negative subjective.

I can only compare this to the writing assessment I do on a regular basis. I've essentially decided on the grade by the first paragraph or two, but I still have to quantify it to the student so it's clear what things were done well and what things still need work. There are some things that are more objective and quantifiable that I can point to - grammar, punctuation, word use - but that doesn't explain the whole grade. There's content as well and again, I can point to specific things: there were no specific details, or your argument was illogical, or you answered the wrong question.

But there's still an undefinable quality that can't really be quantified: a writer's 'voice' or style or...again, whatever you want to call it. Another job I have at the college is reading placement essays from students who want to enter the college. We have open admissions, so they need to take a placement test to see if they are ready to enter college 101 level classes or if they need remedial work. When it comes to reading these essays, we just read through it and put a grade on it - there are so many of them that there is no time for feedback and the student never gets it back anyway. When deciding to put a student into regular English Comp or developmental comp, it's sometimes easy to explain: too many grammatical mistakes, no development of the essay, disorganized. But sometimes it's not so easy. Where is the line between, "It's bad enough" and "It doesn't suck enough"? And sometimes, there are essays that make definable mistakes but that are so beautifully written otherwise, or that conveys such thoughtfulness and intelligence despite all the rule-breaking that it's clear those broken rules don't matter for that writer.

The "rules" are easy to follow and a lot of drones will simply follow them and make decent enough essays/pictures. And sometimes those drones get good enough to be judges and they faithfully follow those rules no matter what, because what else do they know? The challenge comes when someone breaks those rules. Is the picture bad because it broke the rules? Or is it bad even though it followed the rules because of some indefinable quality that is absent - or, it 'just doesn't work'? Or the opposite: is it good because it broke the rules? Does that make the rules 'bad' or does it just mean that they're good for most but not for the people who are talented enough, skilled enough, to add that indefinable quality that works regardless of if the rules were followed?

Wow, talking about grading essays is so much better than actually grading them.

 

[AlanKlein]

The article writer went on and on about using rules vs. not using them even comparing paintings against photos and looking at the rules being broken in both arts. But if you look at his own photos, they follow the "rules". Hmmm.

 

[Derrel]

Wondering where I can get a recent printed copy of The Photography Rule Book? Is it sold at Best Buy? Or higher-end photo stores? Or is it maybe available at the university book store? I keep hearing people talk about The Rules, and would like to read up on them, you know, in order to be ready for the mid-term and the final.

 

[pgriz]

Rumour has it that the Book of Rules does exist, but apparently it cannot be seen by any but the high priests of Photographica, who dole out dribs and drabs to their accolytes, who then pass on what they understand to the rest of the masses. So Derrel, unless you get invited into the Sisterhood of the Crystal Eye, and spend many a year toiling to reach the high orders, you probably won't ever be allowed close to this tome. Perhaps it's time to find that "Indiana Jones" fedora?

 

[ronlane]

Rumour has it that the Book of Rules does exist, but apparently it cannot be seen by any but the high priests of Photographica, who dole out dribs and drabs to their accolytes, who then pass on what they understand to the rest of the masses. So Derrel, unless you get invited into the Sisterhood of the Crystal Eye, and spend many a year toiling to reach the high orders, you probably won't ever be allowed close to this tome. Perhaps it's time to find that "Indiana Jones" fedora?

And if you're lucky, maybe Mish will let you use her whip for your journey. Take a copier so you can make a copy for us.

 

[amolitor]

I've heard that for men there's a.. surgical procedure.. required before you can be admitted to the innermost circles.

 

[Derrel]

Dag-nabit! I thought maybe I could just get a paperback copy, preferably a used one, you know, one that had been highlighted and underlined, so I could study easier...

 

[pgriz]

I've heard that for men there's a.. surgical procedure.. required before you can be admitted to the innermost circles.

That's if you're invited. If you crash the party, then it, and several other procedures, only happen when they catch up to you. I seem to remember that Harrison Ford did a LOT of running...