----- Original Message ----- From: "Randy Little" <randyslittle@xxxxxxxxx> To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students" <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:18 AM Subject: Photo critiques.
A very wise man by the name of Allan Vogel once said to Class I was in. Now I am paraphrasing as its been a few years buts its what I remember him saying. "Photographers don't know how to critique art only technique. Painters would never discus a painting the same way many photographers seem to want to critique photographs."
I know what you're saying Randy, and it's a fair call, but that's not that different from saying a duck is not the same as a rainbow.
I've heard cooks criticizing other cooks methods and ingredients, but never their choice of knife (pots maybe, but not the brand, just the shape).
I have heard painters rip into others for their choice of paints, one in particular comes to mind - I stumbled across the work of a well known contemporary popular artist here, it was in at a restorers and the restorer, himself a painter was shaking his head over it.. the artist had mixed media for effect, oils and acrylics - and there was files of paint flakes lying at the foot of the painting propped against the wall. His argument wasn't with the vision, it was the ART (technique, skill, level of craftsmanship, call it what you will). the method employed to create the painting was ensuring it's self destruction. there was no skill in this, the guy had missed the fundamental, basic understanding of how his equipment worked. Criticism ensued.
But sure, A painter can use the same brush as another to achieve totally dfifferent brushstrokes, the same base colours to mix totally different colour sets, More of the painters skill and very little of the equipment used is conveyed to the final product so each painter is quite obviously going to produce different interpretations - and then there's the whole 'I painted what I saw' thing.. people can make stuff up with paint =D
there's not a lot there to allow comparison when it comes to the technical side. (technique from the greek, technical) it's paint, brush and canvas. mix your media though.. sheesh!
Now I can pick up a camera & lens that is the same as Joe Bloggs used to create an image .. and often I can go to the same place Joe Bloggs went, at the same time of day, and I can create a picture that resembles Joe's, it may be better, it may be worse. I could then reach into my camera bag and mix things up a bit picking different lenses, formats, filters, etc etc etc.. I can then use the same (or different) developer, enlarger and print paper.. or inkjet printer to make the print. Lots of technique there, lots of technical stuff. Lots to allow me to compare Joe's to mine, and then decide how the technical elements contributed to differences between our images.
no surprise we get all techy when we talk pictures. it does annoy me though when people ask what camera I used to make a picture. lens sure.. but camera?
The reson I do not criticize the vision of a potographers work is that I am not qualified to know what is going on in their head. If I think I can see what they were trying to achieve and feel I know where they slipped and can point them toward a better result then sure - but even then I usually resort to technical terms to guide them to where they hope to go (straighten that damned horizon, hold the camera vertical, put a lens hood on, more exposure, less development, hold the thing steady, don't bump the enlarger!, move to the left, a lightpost? seriously?)
