Why No Critique?

[jsecordphoto]

I think what this thread also proves is that you'll get more answers when you ask directed questions. This goes back to Overread's point about there being better ways to get more feedback, and more importantly, useful feedback. If people put more attention into what they want to know/ask, then maybe more people will be willing to respond.

I've had a different experience...

Before TPF I was a member of one particular online forum, and it was quite different then TPF.
When posting photo for a critique, you needed to include your EXIF, and you needed to ask specific questions. If someone just post a photo without any words or just wrote "C&C" , mod would come and explain that exif and a specific question needs to be included. Posted photos without any information didn't have any replies even without mod intervention.

So with that habit, when I joined TPF I posted a photo with exif and explanation and specific questions(did that few times actually) and got no replies. I noticed how people just post a photo and get comments, so I did that and I did get comments also !!???

I personally like when people ask specific question, it's much easier to say something. When a photo is posted without any information I just can't give any constructive criticism because I don't know what OP wants and knows. I may be talking about some basic stuff and then it turns out that OP already knows about basic stuff. Asking specific questions gives more information about OP and replies should be granted.

And now, if you excuse me, I got some critiquing to do...

You have some good points. Maybe we could implement some sort of format for C&C. Including exif data would be good, it would help when critiquing because you'd be able to see "oh, a slower shutter speed could've helped" or "try using F/11 for greater DoF instead of F/5.6"

Knowing specifically what they are looking for critique on would be nice too, although general comments have helped me when I've put something up for C&C.

And the talk about cell phone cameras- I entered some photos in a local fair's photo contest in October and I would say about 75% of submissions were taken on cell phones. All of the winners in their respected categories (people, landscape, macro, etc) were clearly taken on DSLR's or at least those "Bridge Point and Shoots" but it goes to show that a LOT of people believe that you don't need a "real" camera to shoot good photos, just the newest version of the iphone

 

[The_Traveler]

A joint effort that we could all participate in would be to post more intriguing pictures and then critique others in a more detailed way.
This would provide both a better environment and good models.

 

[The_Traveler]

To this end, I have posted this.

I welcome general critique but also an answer to the small question I put in my last comment there.

 

[rexbobcat]

I have to agree that I can only critique so many "group of people shot in the shade in a park" before I really just stop trying...because they're all the same.

It's becoming easier to tell who is really looking for critique and who says they are, but what they really want are compliments on their technically proficient but emotionally sterile images.

 

[The_Traveler]

technically proficient but emotionally sterile images.

great phrase, certainly a quotable quote

 

[amolitor]

I definitely go through phases where I am totally unwilling to give technical critique. I know it's what a lot of people want, but I just don't care (ETA: about technical details)

The idea of insisting on EXIF data before giving critique just strikes me as insane. In the first place, if you can't make a pretty good guess at the important parts of the EXIF just by looking at the picture, where on earth do you get off criticizing those same parameters? In the second place, who the hell cares what shutter speed and ISO was used. Does it work?

There's a pretty good community on here that really wants to see the EXIF before they can really tell you how much you suck, I realize. I'm pretty sure a lot of it is simple camera snobbery. They want to see if you're using the Good Equipment, whatever that is, before they pass judgement on your picture.

 

[KenC]

As someone said a few pages ago: ironic - almost no critique to be found, but here we have six pages of discussion about it, along with other tangential issues, some of it by people who probably got bored when the thread about Charlie being banned was closed.

 

[manaheim]

^^^ There is also the traffic question. Lots of threads get lost here FAST because so many threads go by so quickly. I actually almost always read the most recent threads and don't go forum by forum.

THIS thread has 6 pages of replies just because it happened to get picked up and people started commenting on it, so people keep seeing it.

This thread also has the snark factor. People always enjoy snark, so they tend to watch threads like this.

 

[TheFantasticG]

People always enjoy snark, so they tend to watch threads like this.

Exactly. Who doesn't enjoy a good snarking? I know I do.

 

[pixmedic]

People always enjoy snark, so they tend to watch threads like this.

Exactly. Who doesn't enjoy a good snarking? I know I do.

is that like a good snogging?

 

[minicoop1985]

Cell phone cameras, if you ask me, feel like they're more used for snapshots than true photography. I have somewhere in excess of 2300 photos on my Galaxy S 3, and the vast, VAST majority of them are just snapshots to remember a moment or something of the like. I have a DSLR for a completely different reason, and that is to actually take photos, not snapshots. Not that I've done that yet, but hey.

Hey, I'm totally with you on that, but I have a feeling that we are becoming a minority.

I had pictures in a photography show in September. Supposedly the theme was "no digital cameras." Well, this apparently meant "nothing that is only a digital camera." There were five people showing pictures. My boyfriend and I had film pictures only, the woman who organized the show had one picture taken with a Diana, and a third photographer had two pictures taken with a Holga. The rest of his were taken with an iPhone. The other two photographers showed only pictures taken with their iPhones using the Hipstamatic app.

One of them who had about fifteen 16x16 prints from iPhone shots is actually a professional photographer. He started out on film and moved to his DSLR. He just 'takes snaps' with his iPhone. The app did all the processing for him, but he was responsible for the composition. There were a few that were pretty meh and only made slightly interesting because of the processing, but there were also some that would have made really interesting shots even without all the Hipstamatic filters.

But how many people looked at those pictures and said, "What a talented photographer"? Not nearly as many as those who said, "Look at what that iPhone can do, isn't it amazing?"

And now the camera not even does more and more of the work, but it even tells you which picture is the best. No one has to think about it at all. And then they'll post their selfies and group images and snaps of their food or a flower and get rave reviews and then take all the credit for something that camera did. And they might even think they don't need an actual camera because who wants to put all that work into it when all they need is their iPhone?

None of this will affect me or how I shoot, but it is certainly worthy of a good healthy eye-roll. Just seems like one more thing that makes it easier for people to be lazy but still maintain the delusions that they are a talented or even simply competent.

This is yet another reason I use my DSLR for photos. I hate how everything is becoming too automated. This is why I'm taking more and more of a liking to my Oly OM-1n and my Minolta SRT-101. I don't even like using my Maxxum. It's refreshing to get back to basics, to do everything myself, and know I'm responsible for everything that is that particular image. That's something that I see dying in today's world-the "Do this for me" as opposed to "Look what I actually did" generation.

 

[The_Traveler]

Cell phone cameras, if you ask me, feel like they're more used for snapshots than true photography. I have somewhere in excess of 2300 photos on my Galaxy S 3, and the vast, VAST majority of them are just snapshots to remember a moment or something of the like. I have a DSLR for a completely different reason, and that is to actually take photos, not snapshots. Not that I've done that yet, but hey.

I saw these pictures iPhoneography | Karen Klinedinst Landscapes in person and they look terrific.
Good use of equipment, artist's eye for editing.

 

[Derrel]

In response to basically limr's post above, and also to minicoop's post, I typed this out. Just some thoughts...

So, who is a better photographer? The person who gets great shots with a Leica M6 TTL and three simple Leica primes costing $12,000 total, or the person who gets good shots with a Ricoh Singlex TLs and three crappy 1970's vintage screw-mount prime lenses that were picked up at a garage sale for $25 for all three lenses? Are you saying that the photographer is immaterial if he's shooting with an iPhone? Or that the better the camera, the less important the photographer's skill is? Or that we ought to give a rat's patootie about what ignorant non-photogrtaphers "think"? It's not all that clear to me what kind of preconceptions and biases we're trying to establish here as worthy of eye-rolling.

Is the 32 year-old "hipster dude" shooting a Yashica-Mat 124G necessarily going to produce better work with film and his 120 twin-lens reflex than if he were to shoot the same types of subjects with a Nikon D3200 and cropped everything to square-frmat and converted everything to B&W Tri-X emulation using an expensive, well-done software suite? Who are we to "(pre-)judge and (pre-)critique" the work of these fictional people? Especially since we have not even SEEN ANY PHOTOS?

 

[JacaRanda]

I wonder if TPF should create more forum categories to satisfy, or narrow the categories to satisfy. Maybe critics subscribe to a category or sub-category and hope that posters post in the right category.

Are there too many types of photographers/artists/people taking/making/shooting images/pictures/photographs/snaps to get the best of whatever we should get out of TPF?

 

[amolitor]

I belong to the school of thought that says, basically, the only important thing in photography is to put the camera in the right place and mash the button at the right time.

This is not the only school of thought out there