Are you prepared to say you don't like someone's pictures?

Are you prepared to say you don't like someone's pictures?

  • Yes - I'll tell anyone what I think.

    Votes: 18 10.2%

  • I'll try to be constructive when I post but I will be honest.

    Votes: 109 61.9%

  • I don't believe in being negative.

    Votes: 20 11.4%

  • Why bother, it'll only bring personal attack.

    Votes: 29 16.5%
  • Total voters
    176
The great majority of people here, with some notable exceptions, are equipment fetishists who incidentally snap a few photos with the gear that they buy and enthuse mightily over. There is nothing wrong with that, I'm a camera collector myself.

Many buy the antique cameras to fit in with their self-image as non-conformists, non-digital luddites/purists, birds of a different feather, dreamers, classicists, non-mainstream bohemians, marchers to a different drum, etc.

The problem comes when the camera collector confuses himself with being a great artiste.

Nobody here has ever taken criticism well and/or is even capable of realizing the limits of their ability.

Now I know that most RFF members will claim that they have never seen one of the "Major Bowes Amateur Hour" knock-off shows like "American Idol" or the "Gong Show", but think of what happens when someone with absolutely no talent or ability to sing is tossed off one of these shows.

The contestant reacts with absolute disbelief, anger or astonishment. They insist that the judges have made a great mistake, and they vow they they are simply not recognized as the huge talent that they are. The contestant is furious, lashes out, and defensive.

It is obvious to all but the person who has been tossed out of the competition that they have no ability.

You can draw your own conclusions.
 
I'm prepared to tell someone that I do not like his pictures, yes, but only if I meet him and we are alone. I can explain him why and what and listen to his explanation. It can be an interesting evaluation and we both could get something from it. I think it is not polite to do this in public. Or in the internet. Unless it is anyone which I know very well. Usually when I find in the net a picture I do not like I just skip away. On the net I only comment the ones which wake up my interest. In a very few cases I PM him.
robert
 
I usually say I don't understand the photo rather than that I do not like it. Then I may try to add why.

Meaning and intention is so much more interesting than technique most of the time.
 
Usually I don't have a problem voicing my opinion but I do often refrain from giving people my honest opinion on their photographs especially when I don't see any benefit in it for them. A lot of the time when people ask for my opinion on their photographs they actually just want praise. And nine times out of ten what they show me is absolute rubbish in my opinion. But telling them that is just rude and accomplishes nothing so I just smile, make some generic comment like 'nice' or 'interesting' and try to change the subject as quickly as possible.
 
Ever since studying photography more in depth I've started to try take a less personal view of other people's work, I can usually see where someone is coming from and what they were going for and take it from there, though I will say whether or not I'm a fan of the overall style - no point critiquing a post-modern portrait like you would a modernist one, and I'd tell someone shooting tonemapped landscapes that I really don't like that style but I won't trash it because of it. I do throw in a little bit of personal stuff but that's usually if it looks unintentionally crooked or something minor like that.

But that's only if someone asks, a lot of work on here is personal and is just keeping memories so there's no point critiquing that. I get pretty rough critiques from other places I go to so I think I could probably handle a tactful critique from the people around here
 
After a decade or so, a friend who really considered himself a great artist-photographer decided to make prints and sell them. Of course the result was a disaster. Only those whom he knew, including me, bought a print or two from him out of sympathy, no one else cared for his work. He also had a shock when he saw his work printed and realized it was no good, let alone being OK or even mediocre, it was just low-level very unskilled photography.

Since that episode he changed. he lost his confidence and that belief he had. Now he shoots little and when he shoots you know his just going through the motions. he used to photograph with a smile, now its with a resigned and unenthusiastic look.


Moral of the story, no one ever honestly told him that his work was no good, including me. And despite his intelligence he was somehow blind to actually apprise his own work.

Sometimes criticism is all we need to "wake up", either to change and improve or simply move on. That bit of criticism coming late in the game is the worst outcome and people who hide from criticism eventually reach that point one day because reality always intrudes and balances things out, that is how nature works.

Just in second or third year of photography I was contemplating making a book and I really felt like a photographer, now I laugh when I think about it and I laugh even more when I look at my photos from then.
 
I'm happy to comment and be honest, if it is invited. Otherwise, why bother?

As for saying what I think, this is easy. After all, I don't like quite a few of my own photographs.... so it is just a question of being tactful, yet expansive at the same time. I also think it is important to separate out personal taste issues from other forms of constructive criticism.
 
Compelling photography very rarely consists of photos in isolation. Unity of vision, sequencing, narrative are all equal in importance to the aesthetic of any given photo.

Internet critiques often involve single images or groups of images without any coherent structure. Usually because the photographer hasn't yet learned the importance of coherence of a body of work. Critique on this level is basically futile.

What I see here are usually images presented in isolation. People who post want some acknowledgment that their pictures are "nice" ie. aesthetically pleasing. Nothing wrong with that, but it's such a limited understanding of the medium and its what ultimately you need to transcend in order to discover your own way of seeing things. And discovering your own way of seeing things, paradoxically, is often retarded by considering what others think.
 
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