On 4 Nov 2003 at 9:23, Emily L. Ferguson wrote: > What do you all think? Not about Rick's review but about reveiwing. -- > Emily L. Ferguson mailto:elf@cape.com I have only contributed a few reviews, but I have half-written far more. I find the task very difficult. I have tried to say more than "I like it" or something akin, but have been concerned that longer reviews (at least of mine) have the tendency to be complicated ways of saying "_I_ like it". What I mean is that there are certain things to explore photographically and others I don't. My review opinions are in real danger of being determined by whether I could have seen myself enjoying taking the photograph. For instance, (assuming I recall aright) some while back Emily contributed a photo of a few sails and a mast that I liked a great deal because the abstraction in it appealed to me. I had a difficult time finding anything (positive or negative) to say about the more documentary style sailing photograph she submitted a few weeks later (the one where a man was being instructed in how to use some sort of crank -- a sailor I'm not!) Similarly, Jim's nature photos of various birds are difficult to comment upon because they don't particularly interest me. In all such cases where I am not too interested in the photos, I realize that is due to my particular interests at least as much as the photos themselves. (I could well imagine someone with Jim's photographic interests being equally uninterested in abstract photography, for example.) Writing reviews (even those I don't finish!) has been a very valuable exercise in that it forces me to think about photographic challenges and issues that I simply ignore in my own photography. But I don't feel as though I've had great success yet. Stepping out of my photographic problems and challenges and into someone else's is just plain hard! I commend the exercise to those who haven't tried it. Best, Brian van den Broek
