- Joined
- Feb 1, 2004
- Messages
- 34,813
- Reaction score
- 822
- Location
- Lower Saxony, Germany
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
Well, to be quite open and frank I often get the feeling, mostly so in The Critique Forum, that those who just go about changing someone else's photo and thus adapting it to their own tastes actually don't offer any help at all, they mess with someone else's work.
Just like that art teacher did to my daughter and her classmates when they were in Grade 5, who would take the students' pencils into her hand (wrapping her hand around the students' hands) and making the pencil strokes that she, the teacher, thought were "right" here, and "good", and "the thing to be done". My daughter was outraged, and so was I when she told me!
Right, The Critique Forum is for critiquing photos. Which can also mean you say "I feel you went wrong here". But especially in The Critique Forum I find you should TAKE the time to find the words for your critique, to put your thoughts into a sentence, not to give what is your gut feeling expression in a run-through of someone's work in Photoshop, but to school also yourself to find the WORDs, expressions, to understand also for yourself the reason why you personally would much rather have seen things differently in the photo in question.
When I post photos online, I don't show my trial versions. My unfinished products. My mere attempts --- usually I show what I feel is the end-result.
Thanks to this very forum, and thanks to many people who expressed what they did to achieve a photo, what they thought, planned, etc., and how they worked on it afterwards, I have learned heaps in the past three years, much more than in all the other over 40 years before, and I am very happy about it. Today you won't see a photo on here that I personally want any different in looks than the way I show it.
And the four photos I have so far presented in The Critique Forum (four in over three years, two of them of late) were not there in order to see them changed by others, but a) to ask straightforwardly if something is wrong and why there is no impact (and in the case of that particular photo I am just SURE no work in PS can bring about that impact which the photo does not have, for it simply does not have any) and b) to ask if the play of light and shadow works.
In the case of the pigeon on the road, when many posters say (in words) "How about a crop?", then I can go and either WANT to try out that suggested crop myself or I don't. I tried it. And like it. But I decided to do it myself.
Maybe I am conceited.
Who knows.
I would be the last person to know myself.
Maybe I consider my work to be finished much too soon.
Maybe, though, also my understanding of The Critique Forum is very different and I feel learning is easier if you need to THINK (in words) and express (in words) what your emotion tells you about a photo, and take decisions yourself afterwards, either with regard to a photo already taken, or with regards to future photos that still need to be planned and taken.
Since you PMed me, asking me specifically for my input into this thread, this is the reason why I say "NOTE". It is not out of fear someone might run away with an edit of my work. They could run with the work as such ... I run that risk. It is because I feel that words actually help more, and that edits often are "messing about with someone's work", which is why I even ask those who say OTE underneath their names if they want to see what I did when I feel like "playing" (!) with some other member's photo here. I much rather note what I did and offer that in words for the photo author to decide if they want to apply this or not.
I hope I expressed myself here ... I tried.
Just like that art teacher did to my daughter and her classmates when they were in Grade 5, who would take the students' pencils into her hand (wrapping her hand around the students' hands) and making the pencil strokes that she, the teacher, thought were "right" here, and "good", and "the thing to be done". My daughter was outraged, and so was I when she told me!
Right, The Critique Forum is for critiquing photos. Which can also mean you say "I feel you went wrong here". But especially in The Critique Forum I find you should TAKE the time to find the words for your critique, to put your thoughts into a sentence, not to give what is your gut feeling expression in a run-through of someone's work in Photoshop, but to school also yourself to find the WORDs, expressions, to understand also for yourself the reason why you personally would much rather have seen things differently in the photo in question.
When I post photos online, I don't show my trial versions. My unfinished products. My mere attempts --- usually I show what I feel is the end-result.
Thanks to this very forum, and thanks to many people who expressed what they did to achieve a photo, what they thought, planned, etc., and how they worked on it afterwards, I have learned heaps in the past three years, much more than in all the other over 40 years before, and I am very happy about it. Today you won't see a photo on here that I personally want any different in looks than the way I show it.
And the four photos I have so far presented in The Critique Forum (four in over three years, two of them of late) were not there in order to see them changed by others, but a) to ask straightforwardly if something is wrong and why there is no impact (and in the case of that particular photo I am just SURE no work in PS can bring about that impact which the photo does not have, for it simply does not have any) and b) to ask if the play of light and shadow works.
In the case of the pigeon on the road, when many posters say (in words) "How about a crop?", then I can go and either WANT to try out that suggested crop myself or I don't. I tried it. And like it. But I decided to do it myself.
Maybe I am conceited.
Who knows.
I would be the last person to know myself.
Maybe I consider my work to be finished much too soon.
Maybe, though, also my understanding of The Critique Forum is very different and I feel learning is easier if you need to THINK (in words) and express (in words) what your emotion tells you about a photo, and take decisions yourself afterwards, either with regard to a photo already taken, or with regards to future photos that still need to be planned and taken.
Since you PMed me, asking me specifically for my input into this thread, this is the reason why I say "NOTE". It is not out of fear someone might run away with an edit of my work. They could run with the work as such ... I run that risk. It is because I feel that words actually help more, and that edits often are "messing about with someone's work", which is why I even ask those who say OTE underneath their names if they want to see what I did when I feel like "playing" (!) with some other member's photo here. I much rather note what I did and offer that in words for the photo author to decide if they want to apply this or not.
I hope I expressed myself here ... I tried.