Attached Link: The master of butt-fu

I usually only offer criticism when it's specifically asked for. Why? Because I've learned over the years that 90% of suggestions and critiques will be ignored - no matter how gently or carefully or thoughtfully they are delivered. It's NOT because the artist is TRYING to ignore suggestions, either - it's because the suggestions don't line up with the artist's inner view of what they're doing. For example, I once posted a very dark and evil-looking image on photosig. Fully 3/4 of the critiques were "that's too dark and evil-looking" Right! And wrong! So I've found that for critiques to be useful, they should be about the concrete and in response to concrete questions. For example, if I posted an image and asked "Hey, I am unsure about the cropping for this one. Should I bring it in closer or is it OK?" Then my critiquers have a chance of providing useful input in a place where I am really ready to listen. In another forum where I hang out, one guy posted a photo, "HEY! Critiques please!" and basically every single aspect of the photo was wrong. It was overexposed, out of focus, badly composed, badly photoshopped, and the content was trite. Various photographers kept trying to offer advice but in a situation like that, it's pointless. My advice to the photographer was to pick one area to work on and "only change one thing at a time" see if he could attack his problem scientifically. The real trick to offering critiques is to try to separate the technical from the creative and to respect the photographers' creative intent. "Hey, this image looks really blurry but it appears that's the effect you wanted, so you really nailed that part of it. But your photoshop-postwork over in the lower right is blahblahblahblah..." I've also found that a helpful critique is almost always long. Short critiques: - "That SUCKS!" <- useless - "Wow you are the best photographer ever. And your model is gorgeous. Can I have her phone number?" <- irrelevant - "Nice butt" <- yeah, so...? basically a useful critique becomes a mini-essay. Which I am usually reluctant to write unless I know the reader is receptive. Meeting a critique, the same rules apply: - "Thanks" <- useless response to useless critique - "Yes, the picture sucks and so do you" <- more uselessness To meet a critique head on, the artist must be willing to separate their creative intent from the technical details. That's HARD. But I find it makes you a much better artist. "Thanks. This image is blurry and dark because I really wanted a sense of foreboding. The lower right is darker because I was thinking that was some kind of nexus of evil.. but I couldn't figure out the best way to blahblahblah" As I wrote in my article on the master of butt-fu, sometimes the best way to meet a critique is head on: "Yeah, that image is basically all about the model's butt. It's fantastic, isn't it?" Indeed, I find that the majority (not all!) of the times when a critique really upsets an artist it's because they, themselves, didn't really have an internal notion of their own creative purpose, and got upset when someone else misinterpreted a work that they, themselves, had not tried to interpret at all. mjr.