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Photography---is an opinionisitic art form

Someone on tpf once said " I'm not an astronaut but you don't have to be one o know that Challenger went badly."

You don't have to have a mastery of a Skill to be able to judge effective execution of a skill.

People here tend to not separate between what one likes and what is effectively executed. That's a big part of the issue.
 
A professional is an expert in their field.

Of the photographers out there making a living doing photography, some number of them are photographers, and some number of them are professional photographers.
 
This is the other reason you've got to be so so so careful about even hinting at the word "professional" when around photographers. As soon as its dropped into a thread it derails and you end up with endless variations and variants of the word from all kinds of sources. By the end of it everyone is arguing with everyone and no one can even remember what professionals have to do with the original topic in the first place ;)
 
Overread, I think you are a Professional! :sexywink:
Maybe we should start a "professional" nomination thread!!!:lmao:
 
A professional is one who gets paid for their work and as nothing to do with skill.
 
Life is opinionistic, why should Art be any different?
 
Overread, I think you are a Professional! :sexywink:
Maybe we should start a "professional" nomination thread!!!:lmao:

A professional is one who gets paid for their work and as nothing to do with skill.

Wait so if I get nominated and voted in as a professional I get paid too? Sweet sign me up!! ;)
 
There are many psychological aspects of being a SUPER harsh critique that can be beneficial for the learner. Such as what I like to think of as the "mean coach effect". Tearing you down to motivate you to prove the accuser wrong. I don't however agree that it is the BEST method of teaching.

I think when one is critiquing a work, they should forget everything they know about rules right away. First open the mind and ask "Do I like this?" yes or no. Next question is "How does this make me feel?" Once an opinion is formed and an emotion found to accompany that opinion, you then can try to describe where the emotion is coming from. For example, if you don't like it, and you feel it is a bland or boring photo, or ruined by a setting you would change, you should pinpoint the issues and the strengths taking you to that emotion. Understanding what the person holding the camera COULD have done differently and what equipment was available to them helps a lot. Then begin to make suggestions as a fellow photographer on what you would have done with the equipment, location and subject. Then the person learning from the critique can get an idea of your creative vision, your preferences on aesthetically pleasing subjects, and chose to agree with, disagree with, or learn from you as much as they feel necessary.

Of course, this isn't the case for how critiques go because the human brain is very bad at "un-learning" rules to recognize when breaking those rules has worked, so sadly every critique seems to turn into a "point out everything that the basics says to never do" contest, and only the most seasoned and open minded of users can give meaningful feedback over WHY those rules are there, or if they have been broken in a way that actually enhances the piece.
 
The phrase "those who can't do, teach" comes to mind.
 
I just read though this thead, some very interesting comments and I agree with them. Critiquing really doesn't reguire a person to be an exceptional photographer, photo editors that work for magazines and newspapers aren't always the most skilled photographers and many aren't photographers at all, but they do know a good photograph, they also know how to destroy a good photograph if they don't understand all the componants that make up a good photograph, composition being the big one.

I've spent a lot of time looking at photographs and figuring out what I would have changed if I had shot it, but one factor comes into play in a lot of them, what limitations were put on the photographer while he was shooting the photo, example, you look at the angle a photo was shot at and say the angle is wrong, he should have moved 2 feet over, what if the photographer didn't have the 2 feet to move over? At that point we have to just take it at face value without knowing the surroundings involved in the creation of the photo. It's the best that it could be from where it was shot and do factors like that come into play.

As has been said already, there are a wide variety of people on this forum, everyone has an opinion, some of the opinions are directed at the person who posts the photo without regard to the photo, it wouldn't matter how great the photo is, the personality behind the critique will be negative regardless. This is where people have problems with negative critiques, they aren't even critiques, they are just insults. Personally I don't care if someone looks at one of my photos and says they hate it, but tell me why. The word "sucks" isn't a word used to critique.

Some people just can't put into words why they like or dislike a photo, I look at some photos and like them, it's that simple, it's a combination of factors, if someone wants a more detailed reason, I can pick it apart and say why I like it.

This is an example that follows the same line but different subject. I've worked as a car show judge for over 20 years, I get to go through show cars that some people have spent hundreds of thousands building and find flaws. I have to provide a detailed breakdown on what I think the car needs, or find the weak areas that can be improved on. So I get to tell someone that has 500k invested in a car that he should have buffed out his 40k paint job in a couple of spots, he may not see it, or chose not to see it because he feels the paint is perfect, but it's not. Does he really know that it's not perfect, yes he does, but he doesn't want to hear it, it's negative.

Same as photos, we look at our work, and think it's perfect, but it takes someone else to say why it's not.
 
A great point there about limitations at the time of shooting and its something that I always try to encourage people to post up when they put a shot up for critical review. Yes its good to view and consider a photo on its own, without any commentary - but we also need to remember that a photo is taken in a moment and that moment in the real world can impose many limitations on the photographer that prevent them from making "improvements".

There are many psychological aspects of being a SUPER harsh critique that can be beneficial for the learner. Such as what I like to think of as the "mean coach effect". Tearing you down to motivate you to prove the accuser wrong. I don't however agree that it is the BEST method of teaching.

I think this can work, even on the internet - but it is a method that only works if the teacher and student are always meeting and always interacting. If its one off posts and comments there and there at random it fails because the student only ever gets the beat down and never the pick up part after.

The phrase "those who can't do, teach" comes to mind.

I thought it was:
"Those who can teach - those who can't teach sports" ;)
 
Those that can, do, those who can't, teach. I'm not sure where this originally came from, but don't always agree with it.
 
Those that can, do, those who can't, teach. I'm not sure where this originally came from, but don't always agree with it.

This statement always struck me as a defensive remark uttered by frustrated students under the microscope of criticism.
 
A great point there about limitations at the time of shooting and its something that I always try to encourage people to post up when they put a shot up for critical review. Yes its good to view and consider a photo on its own, without any commentary - but we also need to remember that a photo is taken in a moment and that moment in the real world can impose many limitations on the photographer that prevent them from making "improvements".

But isn't this were the skill of the photographer comes in
 
Yes and no - skills and experience will help one overcome many limitations but there will always be times that the "perfect" shot can't be captured because of limits on the photographer at the time. I'm not trying to say this as a catch all excuse for beginners and intermediate (and even experienced) photographers to use to justify poor photography, but as a way of realising that sometimes you have done the best you can do within given limitations.
 

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