> > What do you all think? Not about Rick's review but about reveiwing. Emily, I think that reviewing should be worded/written not only to help the photographer in how to improve upon in his technique but also to help other see what the reviewer saw/or not saw in the photograph that others might have missed. It may start with a general comment which describes a photograph. It may then describe how the current work compares to similar work of other authors, in same or different media. How it compares to the old work of the same author (e.g. in Greg Fraser's case, one can compare his old photos to new ones; it is much easier in his case, because his interest has been similar, i.e. in shapes; same thing with say Spirer or Andy and other regulars on the list, whose interests have been much similar over the years). Then perhaps a comment about how the reviewer thinks it can/can not be improved upon (lighting, situation, printing, composition, overall point the photograph conveys, color balance and may other things that reviewer can think of). It is entirely possible that the reviewer may not understand a particular photograph/category, then it can be helpful not to tease what one really does not understand. Most of the reviews written in this forum tend to be complete; they tend to include every photograph in the gallery. This, in fact, probably deters many from commenting on just few of the photographs in the Gallery, because they probably think that they have to somehow 'complete' the review. Having said this about what one expects from an ideal review, I would say that any review is better than none and one has to appreciate regular reviewers who really spend a good amount of time reviewing. But Rich's one word review (probably more demanding on him to come up with a word that, in his opinion, best describes a photo) was not very helpful to me because, 1. I really did not know the word 'collimation'. 2. After searching a dictionary, I understood the word but did not know what he means by that in this particular situation and how it will help me in improving my style of photographing. (perhaps, he means, change the angle and don't let subject stare at the lens?). "your photograph sucks" would have been a much better review than "collimation" :-) thanks, Achal
