Window And Blowing Curtain

Are we being too "revisionist" of an image in our criticisms and not very willing to consider the image for what it is? The POWs that we are presented with may not all be marvels of composition or of the type that provides a knockout punch to the judges at a photo competition (Some K.O.'s are very short lived), but should we not simply try to understand the intent and concept of the photographer in making the selected image? Do the bottoms of curtains have to acknowledge the usual cliché of freedom and a visual "blowing in the wind" déjà vu?

I am reminded of one fellow at a print discussion group who invariably took out his two L shaped reframing tools and cropped everything he saw before he let the images really absorb into his mind. He was taking personal possession of these images rather than trying to understand the intent of the photographer. Another member was overly obsessed with lines and how they interact with his subject matter and image frame or are in the "wrong" place. Anything apparently out of balance and not according to the well-established rules of his peers drew great sighs of displeasure from him.

I wonder how many photographers who willingly accept William Eggleston's work would subject some of it to the same critical discussion that is being done here? His photography can also be criticised for "not being too exciting" and possibly to some as "boring". Would his low point image of a tricycle be so commented? Would the L shaped reframing tools be brought to bear on that image, or would we be arguing about the angle of view of the tricycle, or regretting that there is no bacon in the image, just a distant suburban dwelling? How would his red painted ceiling image be criticised? Would it be considered "boring" just as as the yellow tones of the present image? Would those criticisms be based on those criteria brought to bear in this case? What of the artist's advice to break the rules in making an image? Are we considering the impact of the apparent broken rules in this image as something positive, or simply negative to the result because they are not usual?

The image may not be pleasing to some paintball style photoshop users or to some adherents of bucolic landscapes or to some photographers who are happy to follow "the rules" or to reproduce already acknowledged image styles. The POW may not be a successful image, but at least it is attempting something a bit different and it might be better received if it was part of a series on architecture or the places of living, so as to take the viewer more by the hand in interpreting it.

I prefer to priorize the importance of the background, experience and taste of the elves themselves (and perhaps knowing who they are in that regard), than whether or not the photographer is a subscribed member. The latter has nothing to do with the quality of the photographs, although it is of some importance to enable us to see the work of the selected POW author, either via PNet or via his or her announced personal website.

I don't find this photo interesting.

"The image may not be pleasing to some paintball style photoshop users or to some adherents of bucolic landscapes or to some photographers who are happy to follow "the rules" or to reproduce already acknowledged image styles."

Bad, Arthur, bad. That's what I say to Hattie and Harry when they misbehave. Your comment is not about the image as much as it is about those who contributed to the discussion. That does diservice to all, including Bill.

Eggleston's tricycle utilized perspective, had a really nice sense of color, and pitted a kind of subject heretofore unknown to photography of this type in a fairly confrontational or at least jarring way against a suburban landscape. That's how I see it.

I think it's likely some people don't like this photo because they have different tastes and visions from those who do. No grander or more scathing reason than that.

Fred, I have no difficulty with the tastes of other photographers, whether or not they are mine or not. That is the dynamic that makes for good communication and discussion. I do have a bit of difficulty when images get decomposed or recreated by others too easily before the critiquer makes an attempt to analyse the image for its own possible value and only then rejected for somer reason or other. I personally very much enjoy images that break the rules as it allows me to see things differently (and as the photographer) and to wonder why the photographer has done that. I mentioned the tricycle example because for me it is not at all jarring and only modestly unusual. Some photographers are particularly apt at the use of the wide angle and unusual perspectives to provide a different perception of a subject. Many of us have seen the works of Brandt and some of his nudes, or Jean-Loup Sieff and his ultrawide angle perspectives of people and places, to mention but two photographers. I used to photograph small animals with a wide angle lens and at their low level. It was quite interesting to connect with the small creatures and their perspective of man made objects or architecture about them. Breaking the rules often goes much farther than those unusual perspectives.

To Mr. Roswell. Thanks for equating me with your four legged pets. From our personal perspectives and appreciation of photographic approaches we can use various self-invented adjectives or terms that simply portray our own opinions, sometimes with humorous intent, but which do not in any way dismiss other workers. If we had to discus everything in overly politically correct terms we might end up having no committed feelings about anything. If someone qualifies my work in strong subjective terms it is of little concern to me. I would simply thank them for looking, appreciate and evaluate their critique and recognize a differing taste. Some such critiques have done me much good, others not.

I'm baaaack :)

First I would like to refine my statement about paying and currently participating members. It shouldn't matter whether one pays or not. We all know the pricing and benefits of membership. If I'm not getting what I think I should then I should not pay. But I do feel participation is of paramount importance in being selected for POW. There are usually questions for the photographer and many times unsolicited input from same that are lacking when the POW photographer has left the building. Those discussions are not as interesting IMHO.

Back to the photo. Most of you know that I have a very inquiring mind and pretty good software tools and skills. Bill says the photo is un-manipulated save for some additional saturation. I conclude that Bill went overboard with the "sunlight." It took seconds for me to remove the color cast that I believe makes the entire photo flat and leads to our disinterest (at least, those of us who are disinterested.) When color-corrected the walls and rails are actually pretty white. When you see this contrast with the yellowish curtains, one can see and feel the movement of the curtains. No, I'm not going to post a "re-do."

I think Arthur's point in his entry that started with the quote above is a good one but maybe one that vacillates in reality here a bit.

Critique isn't about liking or disliking nor is it, in its purest form, about making the image better. Critique is about trying to understand through analysis what a work is about and why it looks as it does. It is about trying to learn something new and improving how we look at images. Certainly, not every image has something to offer, but most of the time we can at least ponder something out of our awareness and as soon as we do, we have a bit of growth.

Technical critiques are certainly about helping someone with their imaging skills and since this is a learning site, we do have and expect those types of critiques. But, those comments should also consider what the reason and intent of the photo are. Making the most technically perfect or dynamic photo is not, or at least shouldn't be, the goal but rather to effectively communicate what we wanted to say.

Although certainly not as prevalent as it once was in the POW, that is the reason I have generally been adverse to people posting crops. Most of the time, these radically change the nature of the image and do seem to completely ignore the intent of the image. In this case, Michael's crop makes for a much better image but, IMO, does somewhat compromise what I surmise Bill was after (based on his portfolio and his framing). But the reality here is that I would give it at least a 50-50 chance that Bill might like Michael's crop and be happy for the input. If Michael did that to one of my images, we would be redefining "all hell broke loose!".

But I do think Arthur makes a very good point, that what we should be doing is trying to understand the color choices, the framing choices, the photographer's choice of perspective and what those CONVEY, not what we think the image should convey if it were done this way or that. Sickly colors, off balance and claustrophobic compositions etc can all imbue meaning to an image and make it effective to the photographer's intent. What we have to figure out is what the intent was and if it was in fact communicated well or not, that is critique.

We don't always have the luxury of knowing or being able to tell the intent of the photographer and I often simply don't care. I think, if we can discern it (or we have the photographer to tell us), we can certainly gear a critique toward the intent of the photographer. We have to remember, however, that in many if not most cases, intent is not a clear cut matter and even what a photographer tells us could be quite muddled. Photographers can even be in denial sometimes. Asking someone's intent could be like asking the history of their psychological lives. If I could verbalize my photographic intents, I might not bother to take photos. I take pictures, in many ways, INSTEAD of verbalizing my intentions, where verbalization and rationality fall far short.

Besides which, sometimes, even intent can be critiqued. Why would you want to do that instead of this? Isn't it fair game, and indeed at the core of some photographs, to question the very intent rather than accept it and see whether the goal was accomplished? Piss Christ, comes to mind, by Serrano. So does some of Arbus's work. Part of the discussion about those works, and the photographers knew it would be and that was at least part of their point, is not just to wonder if they've achieved the goal, but to challenge and question the goal itself. Many photos would not be as successful as they are if the viewers were not almost forced to critique the actual intent. So I worry, even here, about a bias toward "accepting" the viewers intent, though I agree that it can be helpful to do so. Challenge, however, can be just as helpful.

Also, photography is in great part a visual matter. I can do all the intent-hunting and wondering I want and, even when a photo successfully fulfills what I deem or may even know to be the intent of the photographer, I may still have valid criticisms. A photographer may say, "I wanted this to look claustrophobic," or when someone tells them their shadows are "muddy" they may say the scene made them feel muddy so that's what they decided to show. One might then explain that there are millions of ways to fulfill one's intent and technically muddy shadows may be too literal a way of translating an emotion to a photo.

I think John and Arthur are absolutely right in saying that many times we are too quick to want to re-make an image the way WE would do it instead of the way another creative person with a different image has or is trying to do it. But, just as we don't want to stifle the voice of another photographer, we don't want to stifle the voices of critics, who may reveal a lot in their critiques that can be discussed. This is why, I think, critiques get critiqued as much as photos both here in the POTW and on many gallery pages of PN as well. These are opportunities to learn about both making photos and looking.

And sometimes the result, the photo, can be and I would say should be looked at in isolation from intent. What does it look like to me and on what levels does it work and not work, regardless of what the photographer was attempting to do. It is here and it makes me feel. What's that like? In the immediate moment. Never mind all the other stuff.

Art does break rules and art often is not recognized in its time, etc. It helps to be open and it helps to understand these things. At the same time those are often used as excuses to be uncritical or to "accept" as art some not very good photos, some downright bad photos. Any twit with a camera can say, "my photo is great, you just don't get it." using art as an excuse can close one off to learning and evolving just as paying too much attention to what others say can also close one off and stifle one's work. Too restrictive a vision can destroy creativity. Too non-discriminating an aesthetic can also be problematic. Like most things, it's a balancing act.

Fred, I have no particular problem with your response other than I don't think I mentioned that we have to know the photographer's intent itself. What I said was that we analyze an image to try and discover or understand what it is about. Certainly, if we do know the person's intent when they created the piece, we might suggest that the way they put their image together, the composition and its elements, the iconography etc works or doesn't or that maybe it seems to indicate something else. In fact, we know there are examples, like O'Keefe, where the artist has denied an intent that is universally held by almost everyone who looks at their work. But anytime we look at an image there are markers and often we also have some context that help us understand what an image might be about.

If I see an off balance image with sickly colors, my knee jerk reaction might be to not look at it because I don't like it or find it pleasing. If I felt compelled to leave a comment, I might suggest that I don't like it or that if the color was changed and the image cropped to balance, that it would be a better image. If instead, I take the time to really look and break down what I am seeing, I might realize that the image is very effective in communicating a specific feeling. If I convey that as what I see in my comment, regardless of like or dislike or even understanding fully an overall intent of the piece, the person who created the image will get a sense of what they did or didn't convey as they intended. If I have a body of work to look at and all of the images convey a similar sense, I might gain great insight into the concerns the photographer or artist might have--which will also be informed by the nature of what has been photographed.

I am not saying this applies to any critiques here, but what I suggested about many crops that we have seen here over time is that they often don't take into account any sense of what the image might have been about--which at times has seemed to be rather obvious--but rather force the cropper's idea of what should have been shot on the image.

This has been a very interesting exchange with lots to think about, and I hate to see it ending from easy public view today. There have been several significant insights provided, and I'd like to spend a week or more with the recent exchanges between Fred and John. If photography is a means of communication, there are two parties involved in that communication: the photographer (or artist) and the viewer. Rather than talk about photographers as a group, viewers as a group, and the photographs as a group, I find it more useful to break these down into categories, because I think the categories are sufficiently different that conclusions and resulting actions may differ among them. I'm not going to do this now (this is how I'd like to spend the week or weeks), but in a very general sense there are photographs in which the intent is either stated or very obvious, and there are photographs in which the intent is not nearly so obvious. Reviewers tend to divide into two approaches: those expressing thoughts as to how the photographer has succeeded and perhaps alternative approaches or even tweaks the photographer could have used to perhaps better communicate his/her idea, and a second group who may also share their thoughts as to how the photographer succeeded and alternative approaches or tweaks as to how the viewer would have approached the same intention or how the viewer wished the photographer had approached the expression of his/her intention. All of that is relatively straightforward, but it would (I think) make for a good discussion.

More difficult are cases where the intention of the photographer is not clear, as well as cases where the viewer starts a critique from his/her own point of view of what he/she sees in the photograph regardless of what the photographer may have intended.

All of these combinations of intentions and reactions may have different implications as to the best way to provide the most useful critique for both the photographer and for the viewer. Personally, I can't give my overall opinion in a single paragraph to cover all of these situations -- I think it's more complicated than that. The opinions expressed above provide much to think about, and for me personally this will have to continue on my own because a new POW and a new discussion will probably begin today. It took me many weeks to come to my own understanding and thoughts regarding digital manipulation, and I expect the same will happen when I try to figure out my perceived role and approach in providing critiques. All I can say now is thanks to the many above for the great start.

Stephen, as I read your entry here, I think you hit an a lot of the difficulty in providing "blind" critiques. It is always a better situation to have some context when one critiques an image and in certain cases, what the person being critiqued wants from the critique.

But without that, I think the best we can do--and I think many here do that--is to suggest what we see and then explain why. If I think something is intrusive, rather than suggest it be cropped out, I think it is better to suggest why I think it is intrusive. If I think an image has too much sky, rather than just suggesting it be cropped, a discussion of why I think there is too much sky gives more information that just doing a crop. If my reason is lack of focus on the "subject", maybe I am missing the metaphor the sky brings to the image or maybe I see that and suggest that maybe it is more a concern with balance and that the reduction of the sky would help that and IMO not affect the metaphor. Then, I think the person who created the image can evaluate what has been said and decide for themselves how to deal with the issue--or not. They might decide that the intrusive element can be cloned, cropped or just minimized with dodging and burning. Maybe the balance issue I raised isn't one to the person who made the image or maybe they feel it could be improved in some other way--changing the post processing, removing more or less of the sky or maybe even adjusting proportions elsewhere. There are a lot of ways to solve issues but if one doesn't know or understand what the issue is because it wasn't explained, suggesting only that an image isn't balanced or should be cropped on the right side doesn't give much to work with.

My sense is that all we can do is give the person as detailed feedback as we can about how and, more importantly, why we react to an image as we do.

(Note: I should also add that even though I did reject Arthur's suggestion about the read on this image, I did enjoy it and think that even if it had nothing to do with Bill's intent (and it may for all we know), it is a good example of how an image can be read by the way it is put together. I think Arthur did a great job backing up his interpretation and doing that can only help any of us to maybe think more about what our photographs might--or could--say.)

Critique is also a way for photographers to learn about viewers. When I'm in a position of being critiqued, I find it enlightening and exciting to hear people's gut reactions as well as their more considered reactions. "I hate it" gives me a little thrill, when I hear it. It's honest and from the gut and that's part of why I make photos. Some viewers offer their taste, some viewers offer their ability to put things into historical context, some viewers will talk about a photo as it relates to my body of work, some won't have looked at my portfolio, some will judge me politically and ethically, some say one or two words and hit a nerve and make me look at things with a new eye, some will wax on and not strike that same sort of chord. The best thing about PN and the POTW and the critique pages is that all kinds of comments/critiques are offered and I can give more or less credence to each as I see fit. But I think the array of styles of comments offered can have a very fulfilling effect on a photographer. There is no best way to comment on someone's work or to view someone's work. And it's not always other photographers who will be viewing and affected by my work. Plenty of non-photographers who can't and won't discuss why they don't like something and who can't and won't suggest what I might do differently will offer metaphors, memories, things the photo reminds them of, and all kinds of other feedback that can be more and less enlightening, often coming from unsuspected sources and in very atypical fashion. I have sometimes reacted with positive or negative passion and emotion. That's my right as a photographer just as it is my right as a viewer to be passionate or more subdued or more intellectual or more complex or more simple. I see these threads as sloppy stews of all kinds of meat, taters, veggies, sauces, and spices. I've admitted changed over the years and months and weeks in some of those things.

Stephen, I like what you had to say. I wonder if the "best" way to critique is simply the way each of us does it. Possibly the best critique is a combination of a bunch of different styles of critique from different sorts of people. One thing I try to remember is that even vehemently disagreeing with another's critique is just a passionate reaction and doesn't have to be an indictment of another's right to critique that particular way. So, I can say I hate it when others re-work someone else's photo just like I can say I hate over-saturated landscapes. Photographers and artists are nothing if not opinionated. Good for us! That doesn't necessarily mean I think people should stop re-working others' photos or should stop over-saturating landscapes. It just means I hate those things. It's similar to politics. I understand that people, for all sorts of reasons, may hate certain things I do, consider me a sinner, etc. They are completely entitled to their feelings, especially if they're religiously based. In most cases, though, they are NOT entitled to tell me I can't continue to do what I'm doing, regardless of whether they hate it or not.

It seems to me that it's hard to have a discussion that makes a lot of sense without the participation of the person whose photo is being critiqued. So, getting back to criteria for the POW selection: it would make a lot of sense if one of the criteria was that the photographer agreed to participate. A little give-and-take with that person would put a lot of perspective on discussions about intent and other things.

So a little more work might be required on the part of the moderator making the POW selection, but the results might be worth it.

From the administration guidelines to this forum:

Discussion of photo.net policy, including the choice of Photograph of the Week should not take place here, but in the Help & Questions Forum.

I reproduce this not to chastise anyone for discussing such things as whether a POTW author should be a regularly participating or paying member or should be encouraged to respond to critiques or not (though I'm glad none of those things are used as criteria or insisted upon, just as I'm happy to critique and hear the critiques of others regarding photos of long dead photographers who can't provide us with input either) but because you are much more likely to be heard and responded to by administration if you post this in the place they are likely to see it and respond to such matters. Though I don't agree with these suggestions, they are reasonable ones to be discussed and considered by the administration, and will get their attention in the appropriate forum, which they have told us is not here.

Well, I wanted to be heard and responded to by the people having this discussion, if they choose to, so that's why I posted it here.

If a consensus were reached by the people who participate in the discussion that one change or another would be beneficial, then, by all means, bug the administration about it.

Anyway, it was just the thought that occurred to me after reading all the comments about what a critique should consist of.

Martin, I think there are examples of both good and bad outcomes when the photographer was involved. Sometimes it has killed the discussion--and maybe the discussion deserved it!

Anyway, i don't think it is necessary but maybe helpful when the discussion gets sidetracked on whether an image has or hasn't been manipulated rather than focusing on a discussion about the result. In the case of this week's POW, I don't know how much it would have mattered really as there really wasn't anything too controversial. We may have found out his thoughts on the composition, which could have been enlightening I suppose.

Hi Folks,

Here's the deal, if you want to discuss, praise, or complain about the POTW system or criteria on Photo.net, this is not the place to do it. Remember, you are posting these comments on another photographer's image. Discussions about the site itself are not only off-topic, but rather rude. I doubt that any of you would wish for the same sort of discussion to be plastered all over your image. And finally, if you want something changed on Photo.net, you've got to bring it to my attention. I do my best to pay attention to as many things on the site as I can. But there is a limit and I'm naturally going to miss a lot of what is said. Therefore, if you don't share your thoughts via a method where I will see them, you are really just shouting at the wind.

Any further discussion that is not related to the image at hand will be deleted. Shortly, I will also go back and remove the previous non-image related debate as well (including my own comment here).

Interested in discussing the POTW system? Here you go:

I've got some stuff to say about the Photo of the Week system!

Thanks,

Josh
Photo.net Mop & Bucket man