----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Davis" Subject: Re: Comparing Photos
> "Good" is such a subjective term. I wouldn't have thought it necessary > to point out, but each image plays off of a variety of tastes. I don't > put up an image with the idea that it is one of my best nor do I look > at any ones offering in that way. We must always allow individual style > without a critical comment that does not carry the understanding that > it is my own narrow opinion. > I've read critiques that actually cause me to chuckle at their lack of > artistic aptitude. Again, scored on my own scale. > Identifying your photographer's of choice is a surprise. Omission can > be a harsh rebuff and should have been avoided. Present company not > included, BTW. In this case, a cigar is just a cigar. The three people I mentioned came to mind simply because they are regular posters and their work is mostly dissimilar to each others' work. No insult intended or entertained in this instance. Judging photographs is a subjective activity. There are no goal posts to tell if a point has been scored, no real way of objectifying the quality of the image. If you like it, you like it, if you don't, you don't. One may be able to say why they like or dislike an image, one may be able to apply the classic rules of composition and use that as a measuring stick to say whether the composition works or not, but this isn't necessarily a reliable measure. What happens though, if an image breaks every compositional rule, and still works? Is the image wrong?, or are the rules wrong? Or is the viewer wrong? I've worked as a contest judge. I don't know if this makes me better at deciding if a picture is worthy or not, but it does give me some practical experience at doing it. Does it mean I know every rule there is to know? Hardly. Does it make me a better photographer than the people whose work I was judging? Maybe, maybe not, though I think not for the ones who 's work I liked. It just meant that a group of peers decided that I was qualified to look at a bunch of pictures and put ribbons on the ones I liked best. We saw an image from Tom C a few days ago, a picture which is as good as anything I have seen anywhere anytime, by anybody. Did it obey the rules of composition? Frankly, I don't know or care. All I know was that I was gobsmacked when I saw it, and I didn't see any point in dismantling it to see if it followed the "rules". A while later, he posted another one which I thought wasn't as strong an image, but I thought it had some potential, so I took it and played with it a bit. In turn, this caused Tom to revisit it himself. Personally, I didn't like either of his renderings as much as my own, but this is just one man's opinion. Does this mean I think he is getting worse, rather than better? Not at all. Growth happens over time, years, not days is the measure for this. Even the descriptives we use is subjective, and open to interpretation. I will use excellent as a descriptive, Jens will use brilliant. Is one more descriptive than the other? It's hard to say, as it depends on the vocabulary of the reviewer as much as anything else. One person will politely say the image leaves them cold, someone cruder will just say the picture sucks. Ultimately, they are saying the same thing, and may be saying it with the same degree of conviction as well. Well, that was a bit of a ramble. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
