> "The best critics will tell you what it is they see in your photograph and > leave it to you to decide whether or not what they see is a function of > their unique vision or your success or failure in making the image you > intended." Sounds a bit woolly to me ...maybe that is what the author intended ;o) Seriously though, it contains just a smidgen of wisdom amongst the "patently bleeding obvious" [Basil Fawlty]. Sure, critics "will tell you what it is they see in your photograph". Isn't that what it's about? "whether or not what they see is a function of their unique vision" Isn't that what we all have? "your success or failure in making the image you intended" There's the rub though. And it's on both sides of this that there are problems. 1) When a critic leaves the images and starts speculating about what the author was hoping to achieve - then worse, moving on to why they failed to achieve it - for me it starts to become personal (about the author) rather than about the image. 2) More often, on PF anyway, the author gets huffy about critics having failed to understand what was the author's (unstated) purpose in taking, presenting and showing the image on the gallery. Some here never give any other info or even a title - genuinely hoping for contextless comments. Others assume the viewer will know why/what ... and react badly when the message / context is missed. Anyway Marilyn, as I'm sure you can attest. You can't please everybody. My reviews had been accused of being too negative in the past: yours for being too nice. I guess you get what you pay for. Bob
