Saying you like something

[The_Traveler]

It seems that we go through an inevitable cycle. The site accumulates a set of members new to the site and to photography.
They are confronted with lots of pictures that, to their admittedly inexperienced eye, look good from their own point of view, especially compared to what they have done personally in the past.
So, in an effort to be friendly and to be part of the group, when they see something that looks ok, they chime in with some general 'I like it', 'I love it', 'that's cute', etc.
Often the comment is directed, not so much at the picture, as at the subject, as in, 'What a beautiful/handsome/charming baby/child/pet etc.'
And this often encourages a series of similar posts.

That kind of general approbation doesn't help anyone, either the person getting the comment or the person giving it.
We are here for comraderie but also to learn from each other.
Learning why you like something, helps the person giving the comment to grow, as does understanding why a picture has less of an impact.

It is important to actually look at and see the picture that is posted, not the one that it stimulates in your mind.
Don't love a picture because you love babies,pets whatever.
Don't like a picture because of what it could be some unknown time later, look at it now and understand its positives and its shortcomings; those are what will improve both the maker and your own critical sense.

I post this text below every year or so in an attempt to keep this site from being a mommy site where every baby picture is too cute for critique and every pet is toooo adorable.
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Very few pictures presented for critique in the photo communities on the web are meant simply to convey detail or information, as does a driver’s license photo or a picture of how to assemble some mechanism.

Pictures presented for critique generally are intended to have visual impact but, more than that, to convey a feeling, an impression, an emotion or an intellectual concept. The photographer uses all the technical and compositional tools at her or his command to achieve that. A critique should explore what the photographer did and how well it was done.

A critique has two benefits; the intended one is to allow the photographer to see how his/her image is seen by others’ eyes - eyes that are unclouded by any emotional attachment to the image. The second benefit is that every critique can be a learning experience for the critic who sharpens his/her own eye by disentangling the many components of a photograph and weighing each of these to understand the photograph’s strengths, weaknesses and ultimate success.

How is this ‘critique’ actually done?

The feeling that the picture is great, good, mediocre or terrible is a visceral, emotional response; we need to be able to describe why we have that response. To understand that visceral response, the critic asks him/herself questions and the responses build the critique. The questions are meant to separate out the various components of a picture into manageable quantities so each of us can understand in some way why we feel as we do about the picture. (Think about the best chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever had and the recipe that made them.) The photographer’s ability and talent and the content do add an unquantifiable component but the critic needs to get as close as possible to picking out the qualities that make up the worth of each picture in his or her own eyes.

Some potential questions:

• What feelings or impressions come from the picture?
• Are these feeling congruent with the content or subject?
• Are there one or more centers of visual interest?
• Is(are) the center(s) of interest - the main subject(s) - well placed within the frame and does the placement relate well to the rest of the content so that the viewer’s eye is drawn to, rather than away?
• Is there excess space that pulls the eye away and drains any tension or drama from the picture?
• Is there enough space so that nothing feels cramped or cut off?
• Are there geometric issues? e.g. are the horizontals and vertical correct, and is that important?
• Is the composition appropriate for the content?
• Is the color or tonality appropriate for the content? Saturation or lack of it? Correct hues, white balance?
• Does the color make the point that the photographer wants?
• Is the sharpness or lack of sharpness appropriate?
• Is everything that should be in focus and sharp, actually so?
• In the reverse, is there so much depth of field, that attention is drawn away from the real object of interest?
• Are there individual small defects - points of motion, dirt on the lens/sensor, out-of-focus spots that hurt the image, unduly bright areas that draw the eye?

More questions may occur to you to add to your concept of each image; your summation should be - in your opinion, why is this picture good/bad/indifferent and could the photographer have done something differently or better to increase the impact of the picture? Respond to the picture as presented without suggestions for different angles, etc. If the environment is friendly and the photographer is willing to listen, then suggest possible technical or technique changes that, in your opinion, might improve the picture.

Remember that wonderful, successful pictures may have many small defects and still be great. Conversely, a technically perfect picture may be completely uninteresting. Photography, as all arts are, is clearly a realm where the whole may not be equal to the sum of the parts.

 

[mmaria]

You posted this in a good time for me personally... When I saw the title of the thread I thought "No way!" These past few days I was thinking to give up on critiquing here... for real...

I'll say "nice" and "cute" and "good job" etc, but more frequently I'll point out on faults (imo).

There are certain sections/threads here I don't open anymore because I know that "saying what faults are" on those images is not that highly desirable. So I'm avoiding them now...

I hope this thread will make some changes... we'll see

 

[The_Traveler]

I understand people might feel completely 'fish-out-of-water' but learning what makes photographs good is a difficult task that takes some actual thinking.

Saying 'I like it' for virtually anything without understanding is like giving social promotions to underachieving students - not help at all.

 

[minicoop1985]

Sadly, I totally understand the "I like it!" people. I was like that... Then someone told me to ask "Why do I like this?" Admittedly, I didn't get it at first, but after a while it dawned on me. Some people probably will think this post is harsh, but really, there is a lot to think about when critiquing a photo. Or anything, really. Dance is one I'll never get, but I'm sure it applies there too.

 

[baturn]

Most of the time I just don't feel like analyzing or explaining why I like something - Even to my self.

 

[AR76]

@OP: Great post, thank you for bringing this up.

I think users asking for C&C need to be specific about what they'd like others to comment on. Let's say you've got a series of images that are technically flawless - then you might be interested which of the pictures is the most popular. This is where comments as "I like this one best; etc..." are spot on. On the other hand, I'll comment on the technical apsects of an image, even if I dislike it. Maybe the picture is boring, has no emotion and fails to captivate my attention. If C&C is given in a critical and constructive manner, the user will be able to learn important things for the day he then does capture a 'magic moment'.

 

[Derrel]

You gave a pretty good rundown of a method of evaluating pictures. One flaw I see is the point, "Is the composition appropriate for the content?" I see this flaw many times, with close-up portraits that should be what is called a bust, butchered by the shooter holding the camera in a horizontal orientation, only to lop off the top of the head, eliminate all of the shoulders, and then show large expanses of green lawn on left and right sides of a head that is shown basically, floating within the frame on one to two inches worth of human neck. No bust...just a floating head.

Many of us are using cameras that make images with a 3:2 aspect ratio, which makes a perfect 4x6 inch color print, or a custom-size 8x12 print or a 16x24 small poster print. That frame shape, that aspect ratio, those proportions of frame height to frame width make it sometimes tricky to put real people into rectangular areas; either the frame is too tall and skinny, or the frame is too wide and not tall enough.

When the subject is taller than it is wide, as with say a standing child, on most shots [not all, but indeed, MOST!], the better framing choice for a close-up, bust, head-and shoulder, half body, 3/4 length, or full body shot is going to be a TALL frame...a vertical frame....a "portrait" orientation of the camera. Not a horizontal mess, with the kid in the center of the frame, or off to one side of the frame, looking small and insignificant, and then 80% of the total frame area devoted to uninteresting lawn, shrubbery, or otherwise meaningless, out of focus background junk.

Are there exceptions to the above general concept? Sure there are! But the above scenario is something that I see over and over again,everywhere, on an ongoing basis, as people who have not studied composition routinely botch wonderful opportunities to literally SHOW PEOPLE, their clothes, bodies, posture, and pose, by holding their cameras horizontally, and then firing away, as they look through the camera and see ONLY a small part of the frame, a part that they focus on mentally, and often literally, while ignoring the remaining 80% of the compositional space. Show me the people--not the lawn!

The fundamentals error of using the wrong framing, over and over, is a skill-set killer. It also relates to some of the other bullet points, which are:

• Are there one or more centers of visual interest? [How much 'person' or 'people' and how much out of focus LAWN grass are you showing?]
• Is(are) the center(s) of interest - the main subject(s) - well placed within the frame and does the placement relate well to the rest of the content so that the viewer’s eye is drawn to, rather than away? [Do those big, matching patches of out of focus lawn help your portraits look better? 'Cause they've become 80% of the frame you're showing us.]
• Is there excess space that pulls the eye away and drains any tension or drama from the picture? [I was noticing those big,matching, green patches of empty lawn in this portrait...]
• Is there enough space so that nothing feels cramped or cut off? [Is that man missing his shoulders? Why does she have no top to the top of her head?]

I would submit that many people would be better off if they shot cameras that natively, created square format images, rather than 3:2 aspect ratio images.

 

[The_Traveler]

Sadly, I totally understand the "I like it!" people. I was like that... Then someone told me to ask "Why do I like this?" Admittedly, I didn't get it at first, but after a while it dawned on me. Some people probably will think this post is harsh, but really, there is a lot to think about when critiquing a photo. Or anything, really. Dance is one I'll never get, but I'm sure it applies there too.

I agree totally and it requires some actual knowledge added to that thought but getting that knowledge and exercising that thought is actually good and profitable.

Most of the time I just don't feel like analyzing or explaining why I like something - Even to my self.

This is a cooperative effort.
You 'don't feel' like doing your part.
Don't expect others to work for you.

@OP: Great post, thank you for bringing this up.

I think users asking for C&C need to be specific about what they'd like others to comment on. Let's say you've got a series of images that are technically flawless - then you might be interested which of the pictures is the most popular. This is where comments as "I like this one best; etc..." are spot on. On the other hand, I'll comment on the technical apsects of an image, even if I dislike it. Maybe the picture is boring, has no emotion and fails to captivate my attention. If C&C is given in a critical and constructive manner, the user will be able to learn important things for the day he then does capture a 'magic moment'.

Thanks

You gave a pretty good rundown of a method of evaluating pictures. One flaw I see is the point, "Is the composition appropriate for the content?" I see this flaw many times, with close-up portraits that should be what is called a bust, butchered by the shooter holding the camera in a horizontal orientation, only to lop off the top of the head, eliminate all of the shoulders, and then show large expanses of green lawn on left and right sides of a head that is shown basically, floating within the frame on one to two inches worth of human neck. No bust...just a floating head.

Many of us are using cameras that make images with a 3:2 aspect ratio, which makes a perfect 4x6 inch color print, or a custom-size 8x12 print or a 16x24 small poster print. That frame shape, that aspect ratio, those proportions of frame height to frame width make it sometimes tricky to put real people into rectangular areas; either the frame is too tall and skinny, or the frame is too wide and not tall enough.

When the subject is taller than it is wide, as with say a standing child, on most shots [not all, but indeed, MOST!], the better framing choice for a close-up, bust, head-and shoulder, half body, 3/4 length, or full body shot is going to be a TALL frame...a vertical frame....a "portrait" orientation of the camera. Not a horizontal mess, with the kid in the center of the frame, or off to one side of the frame, looking small and insignificant, and then 80% of the total frame area devoted to uninteresting lawn, shrubbery, or otherwise meaningless, out of focus background junk.

Are there exceptions to the above general concept? Sure there are! But the above scenario is something that I see over and over again,everywhere, on an ongoing basis, as people who have not studied composition routinely botch wonderful opportunities to literally SHOW PEOPLE, their clothes, bodies, posture, and pose, by holding their cameras horizontally, and then firing away, as they look through the camera and see ONLY a small part of the frame, a part that they focus on mentally, and often literally, while ignoring the remaining 80% of the compositional space. Show me the people--not the lawn!

The fundamentals error of using the wrong framing, over and over, is a skill-set killer. It also relates to some of the other bullet points, which are:

• Are there one or more centers of visual interest? [How much 'person' or 'people' and how much out of focus LAWN grass are you showing?]
• Is(are) the center(s) of interest - the main subject(s) - well placed within the frame and does the placement relate well to the rest of the content so that the viewer’s eye is drawn to, rather than away? [Do those big, matching patches of out of focus lawn help your portraits look better? 'Cause they've become 80% of the frame you're showing us.]
• Is there excess space that pulls the eye away and drains any tension or drama from the picture? [I was noticing those big,matching, green patches of empty lawn in this portrait...]
• Is there enough space so that nothing feels cramped or cut off? [Is that man missing his shoulders? Why does she have no top to the top of her head?]

I would submit that many people would be better off if they shot cameras that natively, created square format images, rather than 3:2 aspect ratio images.

I would be quite happy if you would have the time and the inclination to edit/add to it and then we both can have a better piece.

 

[Vince.1551]

Good one Trav. Couldn't agree more. Genuine C&C can feel harsh to some people and trigger that "my work is art" response.

Btw I understand you perform judging for your local clubs. Are they PSA recognized types of salons? Just wondering

 

[keyseddie]

Saying 'I like it' for virtually anything without understanding is like giving social promotions to underachieving students - not help at all.

Exactly. You spent a lot of time and effort on your original post and your crux is well said. Imo the fact that one likes an image has little to do with the quality of that image.

 

[baturn]

Lew. Thank you for responding to my post. I am not in disagreement with you or your philosophy. I just reserve the right to conduct myself on this forum as I see fit. I do not expect others to work for me but appreciate it when I do get help. I would love to do my part and will as soon as I understand what my part is. thanks again.

 

[The_Traveler]

Genuine C&C can feel harsh to some people and trigger that "my work is art" response.

People think that I am harsh; my guess is that is because I am just not interested in finding the softest way to say something or to praise someone for something that the camera did, like focus or bokeh.
I try to tell the unvarnished truth as I see it.

Btw I understand you perform judging for your local clubs. Are they PSA recognized types of salons?

I am not either a PSA member or a PSA qualified judge.
Also I am a one trick pony, I like what I like and am just not at all interested in spending an entire evening looking at landscapes or birds or insects.
That being said, I have judged and spoken at most of the local camera clubs - and one or two have even asked me back.
I would love to be asked to judge an evening of street shooting - but my guess is that will never happen.

 

[The_Traveler]

Lew. Thank you for responding to my post. I am not in disagreement with you or your philosophy. I just reserve the right to conduct myself on this forum as I see fit. I do not expect others to work for me but appreciate it when I do get help. I would love to do my part and will as soon as I understand what my part is. thanks again.

Critiquing someone else's work is as beneficial or more than receiving critique on your own work.
You have no emotional attachment that blinds you to the faults of the image and you can exercise the same concepts of composition and framing as when you are shooting yourself - but without the time pressure.

 

[photoguy99]

While I agree with this pretty thoroughly, I do think there's value in a simple 'I like it' or not.

If I'm trying to make a photo people like and I can get twenty people to say whether or not they like it, that's good info. If two or three are willing to explain why, that really just completes the story.

I think people should be encouraged to do more analysis, although really good work can defy analysis, or makes sense only under the right sort of analysis, but I don't think people should be discouraged from simple reactions.

I don't make photos to be analyzed, ultimately. I make them to be reached to.

 

[Vince.1551]

People think that I am harsh; my guess is that is because I am just not interested in finding the softest way to say something or to praise someone for something that the camera did, like focus or bokeh. I try to tell the unvarnished truth as I see it. I am not either a PSA member or a PSA qualified judge. Also I am a one trick pony, I like what I like and am just not at all interested in spending an entire evening looking at landscapes or birds or insects. That being said, I have judged and spoken at most of the local camera clubs - and one or two have even asked me back. I would love to be asked to judge an evening of street shooting - but my guess is that will never happen.

I'm harsh as well lol that's is why I normally refrain from C&C unless personally requested.

Judging a night shoot sounds interesting. Looking at monochrome night shoots can be very exciting. You must have noticed by now there ain't much night shoots in mono