How self-critical are you about your work?

[hamlet]

People who strive to become better generally are never content with their own work. I think that's the key to becoming great in anything in your life. Because if you're content with your work, then you won't have the drive or the need to improve upon any existing work you've done. That's just my observation.

 

[robbins.photo]

I'd note that a constructive way to be self-critical is to break down the analysis into "What worked", "What kinda worked but needs improvement", and "what didn't work". Then you can focus your attention on the "almost-there" stuff, and get that figured out. As you do that, the "Didn't work" stuff usually starts becoming "Kinda worked". If you're convinced that nothing worked, go back a year or so and ask if you could have made the same shot then. Probably not - you've learned a few things since. So give yourself some credit for making the advances, and continue on.

It should be noted that sometimes you can't even ask the right question until you start picking up the right vocabulary/principles. For example, setting the aperture can seem like an arbitrary decision until you start understanding the concept of depth-of-field. Deciding what exposure method to use can be puzzling, until you start understanding the camera limits of the dynamic range. Choosing the "right" shutter speed to show motion is confusing until you start understanding how blur contributes to our perception of motion. So it is quite common to think that some photographic choices are arbitrary, until you start understanding the principles that underlie those choices.

The subjective aspects of image-making can also be hard to figure out if we don't have the vocabulary of the visual arts. For example, Andrew (Amolitor) has a nice post on colour and the colour wheel. There have been discussions of "leading lines", depth perception through use of shadow, role of texture, visual attraction to human eyes, etc. When these things are known, lots of other things start to fall into place. Without these, it is possible to produce interesting images, but hard to do so intentionally. So part of our self-critique needs to address the question of "what do we not know that we should know". This is where feedback from others helps, because others can point out something (concept, technique, principle) that you may have no awareness of. And sometimes, it is perfectly fine to say "I see your point of view, but I disagree on a subjective level".

I've gotta go with Pgriz on this one. Also one thing I've found is that I'm generally fairly happy with the shots I get - it's the ones I miss that end up bugging me the most. If I had been better prepared, had the ISO or shutter speed set correctly so the shot wasn't ruined by motion blur, etc. Those are the ones that haunt me. Usually if a picture is good enough to go to post I'm generally pretty happy with it overall. Sure I see things that I can improve on or often things that others (mostly non-shutterbugs of course) will miss because they are looking at is a whole photograph where as I'm trying to break it down into areas that have imperfections and ways to improve my techniques, etc.

 

[EAMArt]

Thank you for posting this thread. Lately I have been extremely critical of myself; to the point where I don't even want to take the picture because I know I won't like it when I look at it at home. I feel that every "photographer" (and I put that in quotes because every IMO kid with a phone thinks s/he is the s***) takes better pictures then me.
It's nice to know that I am not alone.