Gregg,
Thanks for your support of our theme/motif/project incubator,
"Riskit!".
I think we are all guilty of looking at our own photographs through "rose tinted spectacles" thinking they are better than what they are, when really we should let our peers be the judge of that. Constructive criticism is essential if we are to improve our craft.
Gregg,
We need to love our own work but as you point out, a way of receiving usable feedback. We can provide, I believe, a framework for photography to be criticized w
here the artist has laid out their needs and goals for a long term project. Here, in
"Riskit!", responses are not just to one picture, but rather to each added image in reference to the others and the overall intent and arc the creator has in mind.
The reality is that most of us are not full time artists with a Master of Fine Arts or Film School behind us or galleries and museums waiting with open arms before us. Here, however, our goals are far more modest. We just want to move, at least at first, beyond unrelated "snaps", (wonderful as they might be), to refining one's photography goals around something fun and worthwhile to each of us, that we can call our own.
But how do we boil down our interests to just a few topics? Just photograph what you like and then select you favorites. What do they say to you about your interests? Where would you like to take this propensity if you could? Visiting art galleries while re-reviewing one's own work may help focus one's interests. It may be as broad as "urban landscape" or "street photography" as narrow as "boudoir photography" or "Macro Photography of Spiders". One can still shoot all over the place, but somehow, of all the things in our reach, making choices of what is of
less interest is the hallmark of successful photography.
Educating oneself about the field in which one wants to compete and then actually working at it, each week making new pictures, around a theme is more likely than not to lead to a connected set of works and your project paying off in satisfaction, if not sales or a job.
So how does one refine one's work? My way is to make an 8x10 print and get photocopies in B&W and proceed to mark up the picture with a red crayon those items that might be wonderful or need improvement. Others will have different ways, but one must find some way of not only creating, but being critical. Then go back and take more pictures. Weed out pictures that are weak and look for images which are archetypical of your ideas for this project. Try to end up with just 12-15 pictures in this elite set. Gradually, the quality will improve.
The idea is that in
"Riskit!" you will be announcing this project. One can post several pictures together with one's end goal and then hopefully the responses will be helpful. However, our help can only go so far. There are many caveats. Criticism here might be well-intentioned but hardly relevant to your work. So one needs to protect one's values and be able to glean the few wonderful grains amongst misjudgments of something you have dreamed about and delivered to the world.
This feedback will never replace the apprenticeship where needed to be a successful and ethical. For example, with weddings, a naive, (even super-skilled amateur), photographer, can so easily fail where a pro would succeed. It's not mere lack of job-specific photography skills, but simply because of no experience with planning, expectations, business, personalities and unforeseen events. That part of photography really needs hands on work with a pro as an assistant.
"Riskit!" cannot replace this required apprenticeship in any vertical market of photography.
With these caveats in mind, whether you want to build a coherent portfolio or follow through with a fun idea,
"Riskit!" is a safe incubator to show a body of work in progress and get hints as to how, what you imagine is in your photograph, evokes reactions in a small, (albeit skewed), audience for your work.
I believe we do have, collectively the skills and sensibilities to provide helpful opinions to each other. It just takes the guts to,
"Riskit!".
Asher