Why No Critique?

[baturn]

Lew, I see what your' saying. I guess I can't really have one without the other, but I really do try to put the emphasis on showing exactly what I saw at the time I saw it, as opposed to framing differently or adding or subtracting light or whatever to create some abstract idea or concept. This is not to say I don't see the merits of other peoples art, I just don't wish to create so much as I wish to capture.
Oh, and did you just respond to my post to stop my whining?

 

[Derrel]

is focusing on the technical necessarily a bad thing in the beginning?
figure out how to work the camera, how the exposure triangle works, how to get a properly exposed and in focus picture....THEN start doing artsy stuff?
or is it something that should be learned all together?
Im not looking for some debate on this, i am genuinely asking if if makes any difference at all which order you learn things in?
we learned technical aspects first.

Well, going back to post #43 and what The_Traveler mentioned...he spoke about the wave of newcomers who basically allow their cameras to take care of the technical, and who are, as a class, reluctant or unwilling or uninterested in doing any of "the work" required to become better from an artistic or compositional point of view. These are the people who repeatedly shoot with awful composition, and yet who are very often offended when their work meets with less than stellar C&C here, or elsewhere.

These days, with the flood of wide-DR digital and high-rez sensors and intelligent, analytical light metering and intelligent programmed auto options...there's not a lot of need for extensive technical skill. The cameras and the file-processing TODAY are soooooo much better than what we had a decade ago...it's now pretty easy to buy a decent camera, set it on P, and use it like a point and shoot. After a few months to as year, a good number of people consider themselves "photographers". Even though they've made very little effort to really learn much except how to operate their cameras. Some will qualify their inexperience, calling themselves "natural light photographers", or whatnot.

My answer: no, focusing on the technical is not a bad thing. But ignoring the artistic and aesthetic is a bad thing. And that's what we've seen over the last decade; an entire worldwide army of people getting into the art and craft and science of photography with basically, no little to no intention of being able to create much beyond a well-exposed, technically satisfactory "image".

 

[limr]

And it's no wonder that more and more people think, "If I have a good camera, I can take great pictures!"

Just saw this on the back cover of Food and Wine of all places. I took a cell phone picture right after I recovered from my aneurysm.

 

[pgriz]

It does make sense. The majority has no time for the journey, they want the destination. It's not the learning that's important, it's the final grade. Because the grade becomes a currency to be traded in for further "achievements". In this mind-set, cheating is the smart way to efficiently get to where you need to go. Same philosophy in athletics - taking the drugs is just an efficient way of getting to the destination, which is to win competitions, and then use that to win the real prize, the endorsements. Same attitude in financing, when fast-track loan approvals got us into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

I'm willing to bet that 99% of the images to be taken by those iSight smart cameras will be selfies, or group images to show others what a great time the group is having.

 

[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.

 

[limr]

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.

 

[mmaria]

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...

 

[amolitor]

This is the reality: cameras are getting better, they will continue to improve. While the iSight camera may not actually take "better pictures" it's coming. For some social norm of "good picture" the camera is just going to get smarter and smarter and better and better at making them for you.

Why is that a bad thing?

 

[pgriz]

This is the reality: cameras are getting better, they will continue to improve. While the iSight camera may not actually take "better pictures" it's coming. For some social norm of "good picture" the camera is just going to get smarter and smarter and better and better at making them for you.

Why is that a bad thing?

Per se, it's not a bad thing. But it lessens the link between the process and the end result. If all you want is a loaf of bread, then picking it up at the grocery store or bakery is fine. But those who know how to actually make bread from basic ingredients, and we're not talking the bread-maker machine, have a much richer experience and connection to the bread that they end up eating. Some of us have gardens, and know the difference between tomatoes ripened on the vine and those we buy at the grocery store. And it's not just the difference in taste and texture, it's knowing what it takes to get that fruit onto your plate.

How many of us retain the ability to do basic domestic or automotive repairs? While none of these skills are essential, they keep us in touch with the underlying processes, and give us a sense of perspective of the logic of that thing we use. Those who go for the end-result, miss out on the richness of the experience (of process) that could be theirs as well.

 

[mmaria]

If all you want is a loaf of bread, then picking it up at the grocery store or bakery is fine. But those who know how to actually make bread from basic ingredients, and we're not talking the bread-maker machine, have a much richer experience and connection to the bread that they end up eating.

well... my husband owns a bakery and I still often make my bread (without bread-maker machine of course).... just saying....

 

[amolitor]

I make bread as well, and I take pictures. I get it.

While there is surely value in this connection, it's not really practical to have that kind of connection with every single thing we do. This results in a hunter-gatherer society, where everyone is deeply connected with the handful of things necessary to sustain life.

Something TPF, and photography commentators in general, tend to lose sight of is that the vast majority of the world simply wants nice pictures of things and people. They seek their self-actualization somewhere else, if at all, and that's OK.

 

[The_Traveler]

Those analogies break down a bit when we take into account that the details of the technology of making a picture carry over into the editing of a picture. So when someone doesn't know about dynamic range, shutter speed, iso, contrast, colorspace, they can't go any further than what the camera gives them.

Hence the sticker shock when they can't progress much past the perhaps-decent, sooc jpeg without knowledge.

 

[pgriz]

I make bread as well, and I take pictures. I get it.

While there is surely value in this connection, it's not really practical to have that kind of connection with every single thing we do. This results in a hunter-gatherer society, where everyone is deeply connected with the handful of things necessary to sustain life.

Something TPF, and photography commentators in general, tend to lose sight of is that the vast majority of the world simply wants nice pictures of things and people. They seek their self-actualization somewhere else, if at all, and that's OK.

I don't think we're discussing/arguing whether all people "should" know how to take nice pictures, but that reliance on the smarts of the tool makes one kinda oblivious as to why certain images are better than others. For the minority who want to have better than just nice pictures, there is value in understanding the underlying processes. TPF, and other forums about photography, focus on the process and the tools in much more detail than is even comprehensible for the majority of photo snappers. We see the tension between the world of those who just want a nice picture, and those who care about how that nice picture comes about. That tension shows up in the discussions of which lens takes the best people pictures, or which flash is needed to light up the gymnasium, or why can't the print off the web image be nice and smooth... One group knows the limits of their tools, the other does not. That does not make them bad people, but it makes it difficult for them to overcome those limits.

Edit: Lew makes the point more eloquently. Tip of the hat, sir.

 

[amolitor]

There are degrees of connection to the work, and degrees of control.

You can argue that you're not truly in control of the product, and connected to it, if you're not growing your own grain, or at least grinding your own flour. Many of us, nonetheless, feel OK buying our flour from King Arthur, and just making some bread. Some people insist on natural cultures, others just use boughten yeast. Photographers have been arguing about this since dry plate was invented, are you truly in command of the result if you're not flowing collodion across a glass plate? If you're not developing sheet film? If you don't use photoshop and 24 bit color throughout your workflow?

You can argue that more control and more understanding is necessary to a truly superior product but it is not the case that more control and understanding will inevitably result in a better product. Frequently the reverse is true. Most people will argue that there is a sweet spot, and most people will argue that the sweet spot is very close to wherever they happen to be standing, which is fairly informative.

 

[pgriz]

So are we now arguing whether moderation is a good thing?