The Art Of Critique

[rufus5150]

To OneSister (from the OP):

One type can be cranky, is always shooting from the hip, no holds barred, knee jerk, “I like it” or “I hate it”.

In rare situations, this can be quite useful, especially when someone posts a series of images. I know what you're referring to, but when someone says I like #8, it does at least direct the poster to say to themselves 'what is it about this photo that strikes people?'

it does not help the OP in any way

I disagree. When you're dealing with many amateurs and hobbyists like this website is, encouragement can be a good device. Is it overused here sometimes with people being overly 'polite'? Yes, I would concur there.

perhaps it makes them feel better about their own work or even themselves

Or perhaps it is just being nice. That in and of itself should never be a bad thing.

Sometimes the OP will be so sure of an image’s value and quality that it is posted not for critique but for the roar of the crowd, the one in their own head.

I do see this on occasion here, but it is limited to a few posters who post regularly. I see many new accounts (*checks post count* er, like I'm at all old, heh!) who seem to want the awe or aww on their first post. I did find it amusing as I went looking for other forums, the first post I cam across was a series of snapshots of someone horribly posed, with the question 'do I have what it takes to be pro?' (the repliers, btw, were less than kind). I don't think that the 'situation' -- if there is indeed one -- here is all that different from any other mostly free site.

I want the objective critique one might receive if they were in a classroom situation.

You can get objective critique only insofar as technical issues are concerned. People can sometimes objectively relate any piece of art to a style, historical artworks, movements, etc, but an image which may drive thousands may not move someone who is viewing your picture on here. I've seen some technically brilliant photos here that do not so much as move me, and some that are technically all over the map, and not in a good way, that somehow draw me in to the story they're telling. So who do we throw out there? The person who has flubbed every technical detail imaginable but has yet managed to create something that inspires, or someone who has every technical facet down and, for all intents and purposes has created a masterful image that fails to move that particular viewer?

Art is funny like that.

I am asking those educators, those knowledgeable photographers, how to give a good critique.

On to the crux. The 'art' of a good critique, in and of itself, is first to not only explain the 'what' but the 'why'. Obviously, the technical issues can be fairly low-hanging fruit in this regard, but not always. Second, remember high school English and the dreaded 'Compare and Contrast'? This is where that comes in. If the work moves, look for the why in other pictures, other types of art. Look for how it appeals to the senses other than the visual. Can the smoke trail above the cigarette invoke the smell of burning tobacco to you?

The single most important is to recognize the audience of your critique. If someone hands you a blurry picture that is a center-framed snapshot with blown out highlights, obviously, they're struggling. They need it phrased in a way they can understand it. They're not looking for an dissertation on all of their flaws, regardless of what they outright ask for (aforementioned 'am I ready to be pro' example is apropos here), they need to be guided on the ropes.

This leads to another important facet which is the ability to communicate everything above. A critique is meant to be read. If someone comes to me with a critique that I can barely discern the sentence structure, it's not going to help me much. If you begin to condescend, you've lost your reader and their work, however high or low quality, and you've wasted time with the critique. (Yes, we should all forgive spelling on the internet, though!)

The art of the critique is a dialog between the piece presented and its reaction, the author of the piece and the author of the critique. The goal of a critique is to further understand the piece and to further understand the piece in relation to other works. The critique seeks to discover the intent from the realized and to highlight how that was accomplished and how it fell short.

If you would like the best definition of a critique ever put on film, watch the end of Ratatouille where Anton Ego gives his critique of Gusteau's. Ignore for the moment it's a cartoon, and listen to what the script writer came up with. It's the most concise, telling thing I've heard on 'critique' in the last 10 years. It is really, in isolation, a beautiful piece of prose.

I shall therefore mention only in passing that I think the means you used to express your disdain ("children", "must have trouble navigating the world", etc) was truly a poor choice of attack when you'd made your point very clear earlier without name calling. The tone certainly prevented me from, in my limited sensibilities, replying any sooner than now.

To alpha:

If people are posting images for critique in order to get a pat on the back, then they're posting for the wrong reason.

If you consider for a moment that, when someone comes here, what they see in general when feedback is requested, they may very well be posting for exactly that reason. It is only a more lofty position from which a statement like that can be made, and that, unfortunately, helps very few individuals who find themselves here.

I often look at images posted for critique here and see a laundry list of problems, from poor exposure to unoriginal composition, poor attention to light and other environmental factors, and terrible post-processing. So it's often really very difficult to give an "encouraging" critique when there are so many wrong things that also need to be noted.

My advice would be to try for the biggest fish... in that particular image or in photography in general (or maybe that class of photograph) what is the first key element that must be present? Framing? Composition? Focus? With those not far along, you don't have to blast their entire photo, but zero in on one or two problems. "The focus in this is off which detracts from any statement being made. If you zero in and really nail the focus on the person in the foreground, you'd be on your way to a much better photo." If you need to throw in something nice, try and find one thing about the photo that you can appreciate -- are there no blown highlights? Are the tones good in a certain area?

Not all photos (and I've seen a few here) have even 1 good quality. So make the critique short and simple. Focus on one key flaw, maybe two, and tell them, briefly, how it might be remedied. You might view a photo as a complete failure, but, if you're feeling constructive, you might try to nudge them a bit in the right direction and help them understand that they're on a path to 'doing things right'.

If you study and you practice, and then you've got some real questions

The neat thing about the internet is the rapid pace of its feedback. And to a neophyte who may even have trouble making sense of their camera manual, this may be their practice. You cannot fault them for that.

Also understand that many 'new' people, regardless of what they post, are readily unfamiliar with anything but a 'snapshot'. They're here to make those better. Maybe they can be inspired past that. I know that 8 months ago, I'd no idea what 'macro photography' was. I bought a DSLR and was horribly upset at the fact that I spent $1000 for a camera that didn't also record video (long story and lots of disposable income and an eager salesman). But if it weren't for a few people (elsewhere, not here) who took a look at my feeble attempts at snapshots and said 'this is what you might like to read, this is what you might look up on the internet, etc' that I decided to take full advantage of what this new camera might offer.

To The_Traveller:

Count the new posts and see what percentage are complete, redundant questions.

I've had, in the past few days, a good set of opportunities to use the 'search' function of these forums. I consider myself good at using such tools because, well, I've authored many similar ones before for databases, bulletin boards, data warehouses, etc. Frankly, if someone's new to these forums, the search feature can be a little... less than productive. And the older a forum gets, the more redundant questions are going to be asked. Let someone else handle them if they're becoming old hat or keep a list of links handy or... if you're feeling altruistic, write a good FAQ starting point for the, for lack of a better phrase, 'frequently asked questions'.

Count the new posts and see how many are actual pictures rather than snaps.

Here's a point the 'we are the critiquers' can really do a service -- identify these 'snaps' and don't just say 'that's a snapshot', 'that looks snapshottish' because early posters don't know what that means. And, now having ready many idiot's guides and dummy books as well as some more learned material, none of them defined what a 'snapshot' was compared to what an 'actual picture' is!

I'd like to wrap this up neatly but I've already rambled on long enough. I think there is probably a nice middle ground between the 'atta boys', the attention whores, and the lofty Capital-A-for-Art people that these forums are closer to than anyone would like to admit. But as I'm new, I'll wait it out and see, and maybe I'll get an 'atta boy' when I most need it, and maybe I'll get a 'this is how you should improve' when I need it most. They both have their place.

 

[Alpha]

To alpha:
If you consider for a moment that, when someone comes here, what they see in general when feedback is requested, they may very well be posting for exactly that reason. It is only a more lofty position from which a statement like that can be made, and that, unfortunately, helps very few individuals who find themselves here.

They're often mutually exclusive. If you don't ask for critique then I generally won't bother. In that case it's fine if you want a pat on the back. If you ask for critique then I will critique. And you'll get a pat on the back if it's a great image. If not, you won't. I'm not talking about encouragement when I say "pat on the back." I'm talking about unqualified praise for bothering to trip the shutter.

My advice would be to try for the biggest fish... in that particular image or in photography in general (or maybe that class of photograph) what is the first key element that must be present? Framing? Composition? Focus? With those not far along, you don't have to blast their entire photo, but zero in on one or two problems. "The focus in this is off which detracts from any statement being made. If you zero in and really nail the focus on the person in the foreground, you'd be on your way to a much better photo." If you need to throw in something nice, try and find one thing about the photo that you can appreciate -- are there no blown highlights? Are the tones good in a certain area?

Which is not a critique. If you took your car to the shop and it was low on oil, had a blown fan belt, a leak in one of the tires, and a nice paint job, how useful would it be if they told you, "Nice paint job. Oh, and you've got a blown fan belt" ? Of course it's helpful to know about the fan belt, but you aren't going to bother topping off the oil and replacing the tire unless someone tells you or you bother checking them on your own. An incomplete critique is not much of a critique at all. Which leaves me at my original dilemma.

Not all photos (and I've seen a few here) have even 1 good quality. So make the critique short and simple. Focus on one key flaw, maybe two, and tell them, briefly, how it might be remedied. You might view a photo as a complete failure, but, if you're feeling constructive, you might try to nudge them a bit in the right direction and help them understand that they're on a path to 'doing things right'.

If they've done everything wrong, it can be said without question that they are not on a path to doing things right. To claim otherwise is patently wrong in any logical sense.

The neat thing about the internet is the rapid pace of its feedback. And to a neophyte who may even have trouble making sense of their camera manual, this may be their practice. You cannot fault them for that.

This forum is not a photography school. If other knowledgeable people want to assume the role of teachers, then that's their prerogative. But it isn't incumbent upon me to do the same. And I can and will fault people for trying to require it of me.

 

[rufus5150]

Which is not a critique.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

If you took your car to the shop and it was low on oil, had a blown fan belt, a leak in one of the tires, and a nice paint job, how useful would it be if they told you, "Nice paint job. Oh, and you've got a blown fan belt" ? Of course it's helpful to know about the fan belt, but you aren't going to bother topping off the oil and replacing the tire unless someone tells you or you bother checking them on your own. An incomplete critique is not much of a critique at all. Which leaves me at my original dilemma.

I think your analogy is fundamentally flawed. This isn't a driver bringing his automobile in for service, think of it more like a new mechanic and an old mechanic. The new mechanic is given charge of a vehicle with a number of problems. He comes to the older mechanic with a laundry list of problems with the vehicle and the older mechanic says 'fix the fan belt first, then come back and ask me about the next problem'.

Of course with where some people are in terms of their photography skills, they might not even know where the proverbial dip stick is (I have my guesses somedays...).

It's not a critique in the terms of Capital-C for Critique critique, but does someone who doesn't know how to focus properly really need a lecture on the various forms of the golden rule as applied to framing? (Not that it could be given or even understood.) I reiterate my point about the critique (and the critique-er) being aware of its (his or her) audience. But if you'd rather reserve your masterful brush of exquisite critique, then that's up to you.

If they've done everything wrong, it can be said without question that they are not on a path to doing things right.

Hence why they need the nudge. Of course everyone's first few pictures had everything correct with them... silly me.

This forum is not a photography school.

Not entirely, but according to the FAQ (where the word 'educational' is used rather emphatically) and the fact there's a whole section devoted to 'assignments', one might get the impression that it might serve, in some way, to be a 'school' of sorts.

And I can and will fault people for trying to require it of me.

I'm not trying to require it of you. You said 'you cannot critique person X with their flawed photo' (paraphrased), I disagreed and showed you, though maybe it's not the money-shot of critiques, you can critique them in such a way it may be helpful to them. You don't have to do that, but you say you can't, and I disagree. But then again, you and I have very different opinions on what a 'critique' is.

 

[manaheim]

This forum is not a photography school. If other knowledgeable people want to assume the role of teachers, then that's their prerogative. But it isn't incumbent upon me to do the same. And I can and will fault people for trying to require it of me.

Alpha, I have a great deal of respect for your knowledge about photography, but this perception of yours that people are requiring anything of you is kinda ridiculous. No one is. You don't want to comment or assist certain people or on certain images, then don't.

What's more is who are you to say what the forum is and isn't? I'll admit I haven't read the FAQ in a while, but I do seem to recall that the forum is very much a place for people to help each other, share information and critique... not a school, per se, but certainly a place of learning... and that's ignoring the fact that the moderators and the community make up what any internet community is... and so far, this looks very much like a place of learning and no one seems to be complaining about it except an isolated few who feel we are forcing you to be involved... which, as I said, no one is.

 

[Alpha]

All I'm defending is my right to not be jumped all over. If that's too unreasonable a request then you guys are thoroughly confused.

 

[manaheim]

All I'm defending is my right to not be jumped all over. If that's too unreasonable a request then you guys are thoroughly confused.

I, for one, will die for your right to not be jumped all over.

Or at least for your right to ignore anyone who does it.

 

[That One Guy]

Most of us are in our underpants anyway. How can you take that serious?

:hail:

 

[skieur]

This is a much easier call than you're making it out to be. If your composition is poor AND your subject is uninteresting AND your exposure is wrong AND you used the wrong depth of field AND your post-processing is terrible or nonexistent, then chances are you haven't practiced or studied much. If you have practiced a lot and studied a lot, and you still make all of these fundamental errors, then your problem is in all likelihood beyond what I can help with, at least over the internet. I don't, in any way, represent all of the kind, learned souls on this board, of which there are about 5 or 10. If they think they can put out a house fire with a garden hose, that's their prerogative. But it's just not worth it to me.

I agree with Alpha. Any experienced photographer is aware that you need to do your homework. If you can't learn anything from books then you are illiterate and you are in the wrong field or hobby. If you are big on experience then join a camera club and listen carefully to critique and advice. There is really no excuse for ignorance of basic photographic procedures that can even be gained by reading the manual combined with the arrogance that "I am an artist and can ignore the rules and standards that produce a quality image."

skieur