To evaluate a photograph

...maybe you should've done a pruning job to tidy up the

environment first...

Boil it down to my "new"-ness here, but I think I am beginning to understand why most people stay away from threads such as these. Someone makes a genuine effort to participate and explain a few things in an honest tone, and a few analytically challenged folks run with their own interpretation of what they want to hear. The bottom line is, most people only want to be praised, and are uncomfortable with anyone criticising them. I don't come online to make friends per se, but some people do come here with that explicit purpose and want to create a fraternity of sorts - a little country club atmosphere. You won't be seeing my application to be a member of such a club.

 

Kent - Good luck getting an "evaluation" of your work, whatever interpretation you have of that word.

<I>So much crap passes for street photography here and elsewhere just because it's B/W

and high contrast to make it look gritty. You're not fooling everyone out there, rest

assured. When I look at the mish mash of images posted on some other member's

websites (who have big mouths here), I see no coherence, no pattern, no message, no

structure, no compositional elegance, no grace, no beauty, nothing.</I><P>

 

Perhaps there are better forums available where you can post your photos/frames and

where your interpretation of the genre, strong views, and attitude would be more

accepted. Here, you're just self-destructing and pissing off a lot of talented and

knowledgeable photographers (and nice guys in general) in the process. I suspect you're

oblivious to that. It'd be different if you had the experience and portfolio to lecture as you

do.

Peter, Appreciate your attempt to put your thoughts into words and illuminate a few things for me.

 

Brad, You won't be seeing a lot of participation from me in these types of threads, if that makes things any better for you and the rest of the crowd. Giving opinions is never a pleasant business, even when someone asks for it.

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Things that I have learned here at Photo.net ...

 

To Post process faster and better.

Not to become emotional attached to an image.

How to get kicked in the nuts and survive! :-)

"emotionally"

<I>"..Lack of opportunity sounds too much like an excuse to me..."

<P>

there is no attempt to make excuses with this statement...</I>

<P>

Peter I appreciate your considered response, and while I need a minute to re-read and digest it I would like to be clear: my reaction to that statement stems from the fact that I am continually impressed by SP images that make common, routine interaction seem almost magically expressive. And for this to happen it takes, IMHO, a great eye.

<P>

In other words talent creates opportunity, not the other way around.

(not that you were saying that of course)

Kent:"I care what makes a single good photograph. Pulitzer committee cares I think. Photo

editors who have to select one from many photos to publish that day must care"

 

Kent, the reference to Pulitzer committees I think actually reinforces my point about single

images being of more historical than aesthetic significance. Off the top of my head I can't

think of any genuinely significant photographers who've been awarded a Pulitzer. When it

comes to photo editors the selection process is generally compromised by so many other

factors that the pure "look" of the single image is secondary at best.

 

" I wouldn't be surprised that before Eggleston or Peress were masters they wondered as

well. Now they have achieved sort of an unconscious competence and they don?t have to

think about it anymore. It's become second nature to them. But it was not always so"

 

I believe that great artists are generally great because they are inherently different to the

rest of us - they think different, they see different. They may evolve, but the spark is

there from day one. It would be comforting to imagine that we could all reach their level if

only we worked at it hard enough - sadly this isn't the case.

 

Nels:" I don't come online to make friends per se, but some people do come here with that

explicit purpose and want to create a fraternity of sorts - a little country club atmosphere.

You won't be seeing my application to be a member of such a club."

 

Nels, why are you reacting like this? You behaved dumbly and you got called on it. Deal

with it rather than just walk away.

It would have been safer to say I don't understand certain kinds of street photography, because the visual language expressed therein - if any - is lost on me. Just as some people misinterpreted my remarks above, it is quite likely that I am misinterpreting their "visual" remarks.

 

Off to Photoshop mice nuts now...

Boris - I believe or maybe I just want to believe the spark is in everyone. But look in any first grade classroom at art time. If you ask the first graders who are the artists in this class they all raise their hands. Walk down to the 6th grade class and ask the same question and you get two hands if you�re lucky. Somewhere between those two classrooms a lot of fire got extinguished.

Returning to the original post, it's fine to evalutate photos after the fact. It's hard to apply such criteria during the heat of the moment, however. Too much thinking never did anything good for my work. Now that I think about it, that vaguely echos something HCB once said. Ah, I don't have an original bone in my body...

 

Regarding the magic number 8, oddly, I find that I've only recently begun to have a sense of what I'm doing--after eight years of hit & miss snapping.

 

What's with this long cantankerous thread?

<p>Hey there, Kent. I'm sorry to bring this back to your original post (*grin*) but I actually find it interesting. I'm having trouble with № 4, though — ``Could I read it?'' Two things: first, I'm not sure I understand how I would answer № 1 (``What was the photographer trying to do?'') if I can't <em>read</em> the image. So (unless I'm misunderstanding something) if I've answered № 1 then № 4 must be a yes.</p>

 

<p>Also, I'm intrigued by the question of `reading' photos. (I'm an historian by trade, and we talk about `reading' all kinds of `documents', from literary works to propaganda posters...) I'm posting a photo here that shot yesterday afternoon. To `read' this photo requires knowing things about religious/political symbols. This photo would be completely meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with European religious imagery. You would need to recognize the cross and crucified Christ to get the first level. But the what makes this interesting (from my perspective) is the next level, which requires a familiarity with the symbols of Neopagan and white-supremacist movements: the cross inscribed in a circle is <em>also</em> the pagan sun-wheel, which has (inter alia) occasional white-supremacist associations. The rune scratched in the lower right is <em>odal</em> (ᛟ), the letter <o>, which can represent Odin — and has been used by Neopagan white-supremacist groups (as well as the insignia of an SS regiment in the Second World War). That's a lot of meaning that's packed into a set of symbols, with which I wouldn't expect all viewers to be familiar. So, if a viewer can't `read' the image because of unfamiliarity with the `language', what does that mean?</p><div></div>

Hi Thanasis -

 

I think the first 3 are related but not the same. Collectively they are criteria maybe more appropriate to the photographer than the critic. But we are all student photographers in my mind and this is a classroom. I can see value in discussing intent among classmates. At least considering it.

 

I think 4 is yes when 1 is yes if and only if 2 is yes. Which is to say pictures with strongly felt intent and pictures that successfully meet their intent will be inclined to read well. It sound like a bias against snapshots. Hmmm Yea that's probably me. <BR><BR>

 

By the way in the book recommended by John Sypal at the top of this thread the author, Terry Barrett, says generally evaluating a photo according to the intent of photographer is a method, although a weak method of critical judgment. Immediately following he goes on to say <BR><BR><I>It is beneficial for photographers to carefully consider what it is they intend to express and to consider whether they have achieved their intents and whether their intents are worth achieving; and it is appropriate for teachers to critically consider students' intents. But critics ought to work with the images the photographers make, not with the minds of the makers.</I><BR><BR>

 

About reading photos, the 4 criteria come from the literary world, thus that particular verb. I do not take "reading" a photograph as literally as you. Your photograph would work as an illustration but would not stand alone they way we generally find a photograph if you mean to convey all that information. So I think we are talking about different things.

<p>I'm still thinking about this... and wondering if what I'm getting stuck on is the implications of universality. Clearly there are some photos which will have (near-) universal impact. (I'm thinking of a photo I saw of an elderly Iraqi man holding the broken body of a young girl killed in an air raid... very few people could have failed to be moved by that photo.) But others will speak to a more restricted audience, because their symbol-set is in less general knowledge. The example photo I posted is rather extreme in that respect — but very many photos require knowledge of the culture they depict to `get' them. I will thus use as another example a photo I wasn't able to take because I didn't have my camera. A portly, middle-aged Frenchman at the summer Fête de la Musique was dancing the twist in the mosh pit of a death-metal band's set. It would have made a great photo — but it would have been meaningless to someone who didn't know that middle-aged people don't generally enter death-metal pits, much less dance the twist in them.</p>

<p>So... assuming that I had in fact taken this award-winning photo, would it have been a <em>lesser</em> photo because decoding it required knowledge of the symbols employed? Probably most viewers in the industrial world would be able to read it, but I suspect most people in, say, central Africa would not recognize the elements being juxtaposed as incongruous, and would just see a European man dancing with some youths.</p>

Please know that I am responding to your forum in the lightest manner possible:<p>

Hey Kent,<br>

I understand that everyone has a certain method of "evaluating the merit" of a photograph; However, what I don't understand is why you are limiting yourself with your 7 steps. You are setting yourself up to find a flaw in the merit of EVERY photograph you evaluate. I agree that the first two questions could be asked when evaluating a photograph, but the third step unnecessary and is also where the "logic" of the 7 steps is flawed. "Should it have been done at all?" Is it really <i>your</i> place to make that call? The photographer behind the camera has every right to capture ANY image that he/she believes could convey an idea or emotion. Is it possible that you could judge a photograph by how you feel rather than simply using a set of rules? - where is the fun in that? Why does anyone take a picture? Because THEY believe that it means something. If it means nothing to you, than so be it. It may mean more to the next person than it does to the person who took the picture. I recently read a comment by one of the members of this site that said the following:<p>

 

<i>ﾓIt does not stand to reason that one must be an excellent photographer to be a relevant critic. There are two separate kinds of criticism for a picture. One kind is mundane technical matters (i.e., ﾒyou couldﾒve avoided the blown out highlights with a 3 stop graduated neutral-density filterﾒ, or, ﾒnext time youﾒre in this situation, put an extender on your flash and shoot at a higher shutter speed.ﾒ) True enough, the more experienced photographers have an advantage in this area. But this kind of critique, while pertinent to successfully executing a picture, is merely the far lesser kind of critique.ﾔ

 

<b>ﾓThe greater kind is critique that addresses the heart of the photograph: what it expresses...ﾓ</b></i> - Mike Spinak<p>

 

 

I <i>do</i> admit there should be a certain amount of technical knowledge behind a picture, i.e. lighting, composition, etc. I just find it a little closeminded to use a "black or white" set of rules to judge the merit of a picture. You should always be prepared to bend a little bit when observing a photograph - rules are meant to be broken. By creating this set of rules, you are asking every single photographer that posts a picture on this site to create an image to <i>your</i> liking and set of rules. Yet, you stated the following in your forum:<p>

 

<i>"I think a work of art should be met on itﾒs own grounds and not be imposed upon by asking it to comply with anybody's expectations."</i><p>

 

A bit of a contradiction, don't you think?<p>

 

In observing some of the dark discussions that have taken place on account of your forum, I feel the need to say the following:<p>

I am not trying to make you change your mind, I am simply observing and putting in my two cents. I am new here and I am just trying to be involved and I certainly don't want you to think that I am responding in hopes to sway your position on the matter.<p>

 

Sincerely,<br>

Rob

I think trying to evaluate a photograph in some objective way is really a dangerous thing.

It can kill the spirit - that of the photo as well as your own. It reminds me of the scene in

"Dead Poets Society" (don't mean to start a flame war on Robin Williams' career) where he

told his student to tear out the page that layed out the formula or criteria whatever for

judging great poetry. I think a good photo is like a good beer (or poem) - you just

recognize it as such. Surprising amounts of agreement happen in the presence of a good

example of either.

 

I think it is far more productive for we photographers to look at many images and ask

ourselves what is it about this photograph than enthralls me? Why can I not take my eyes

off it? And then set out to do the same - and I don't mean copy it - I mean capture the life

of a powerful image, start looking for THAT THING in the world around you, and when you

see it, have film in your camera....