On Sat, 17 Sep 2011 11:29:04 -0700, "Frank S"
wrote:


"Bowser" wrote in message
m...
The Dusk or Dawn gallery is posted, and it's a very healthy gallery, too.
Some nice shots in there. Take a look, and offer a friendly critique, if
you dare.

http://www.pbase.com/shootin/duskdawn


[ ... ]

Very healthy, indeed, in the More-fine-work-than-not sense.


Can we talk about "critique"?

As a photographer, what do you want from a critical viewer?

An impression of the photograph as it is seen by someone for the first
time. In what I submit, I've seen it as one of many downloaded and
before any adjustments or cropping. I've seen it "grow" to its
present state. Sometimes I've worked on the pieces and don't see the
whole, and sometimes I've seen the whole but missed the pieces.

I miss things about it because I'm so familiar with it. Critiques
show me what I've missed.

As a critic, what do you expect the photographer to glean from your
comments?

Completely up to them. I don't even expect them to agree with me.
I'm just doing to them what I want done to me.

As a non-critical viewer do you care if the photographer has any interest in
your impressions?

I don't really understand the question.

As a photographer, do you care what a non-critical viewer has to say about
your work?

The photograph is mostly for me. I have hundreds of photographs on my
drive that no one except me has seen or ever will see. They aren't
unseen because I don't think they're worthy, but because it doesn't
matter whether they're seen by others or not.

I've often compared photography to hunting (which I don't do). It is
the hunt, the discovery, and the kill. You don't have to mount the
heads, though.

As a photographer, what do you intend any viewer should take away from
exposure to your work?

I like it when people enjoy or are somehow stirred by a photograph
I've taken, but what they get out of it is not at all important
compared to what I get out of it.

Are there other, perhaps more-relevant, questions about the
photographer-viewer relationship that should be asked and answered?

From the photographer's viewpoint, it's kind of unimportant to me what a
critical viewer thinks about the technical aspects of my work; if I could
have improved it, I probably would have and if not, would not have shown it
(no guarantees, there).

For that work, yes. But for future processing? I take critiques to
heart and incorporate suggestions into future processing. Not single
critiques, and not all critiques, but I'll take into account a
consensus of opinion.

From the photographer's viewpoint, what I want from non-critical viewers
is some assurance that they had a glimpse, impression, whiff of what and how
I was looking at whatever subject prompted my shutter-release.

From the viewer's perspective, I think it's worthwhile making a
distinction between "feel" and "think"; I feel as if there is too much
emphasis on technical aspects of images, but I think it's a good thing to
suggest and apply some "science" in some instances.

I don't think there's too much emphasis on the technical. You can't
make a bad photograph better by processing it the right way and
following the guidelines of good composition, but you can make a good
photograph bad by not doing so.

Technique is noticed more by its absence than its presence. If good
technique is employed, you don't notice that it is part of what made
the image good.


From the viewer's perspective, I try to see in an image what it is the
photographer was hoping to express at the moment of shutter release. If it
is merely a record of some visual aspect of the presented world, OK; did
they get that part right? If a more impressionistic gathering of elements
seems to have been the intent, I try to crawl into the photographer's head a
bit, feel what I think they were feeling, understand why they thought it was
important to capture. Sometimes it's not easy to get to that inner position,
and I might try to think a little more about what the image says to me,
apart from what the photographer planned or caught, or failed to catch.

Frankly, I think the above is nonsense. You open an image, or turn
the page in a magazine, and the mind forms an opinion about the
photograph in milliseconds. Before you consciously form an opinion,
the subconscious is telling you what that opinion is based on the
first view.

By the time you get around to thinking about what the photographer was
trying to accomplish or feeling, you are chewing old food. Conscious
thought plods where the subconscious races to a conclusion. All the
analyzation accomplishes is the justification of what the subconscious
told you, and gives you a fictitious story to go with it.

From my reading of this forum I believe I've been able to learn enough about
the participating photographers to make some kinds of observations about how
their personalities and character are reflected in the images they submit to
the Shoot-In.

I don't think that's a mirror I want to look into.

I don't really want to talk about that, but there it is. What
do y'all think?

Very resp'y,

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida