[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

After all, I assume the purpose of posting in the critique is to seek advice from the ' knowledgeable' in that particular discipline.

This is not and IMHO should not be the case Don. Posting in a critique forum tome is more about asking for peoples opinions on whether they not only like an image or whether they feel it works, or does not work. If possible it is good to hear what it does for the viewer, what feelings it instills in a person, what they feel about an image etc. It is about aesthetics as well as technicalities. Technical expertise can sometimes be secondary to aesthetics.

There are plenty of people on this forum who are capable of this and indeed on many occasions I have appreciated the comments on my my own efforts. Again it is my opinion as has already been stated earlier in this thread that anyone can give there own opinion about how they feel about an image, what they see in it and whether they think it works, is good or bad and why. Surely this is what art and in this case photo fineart is about.

Re post #19. In order to do that, surely providing as much information relative to the image is essential. If this is not so, then perhaps I am missing something.

I'm pretty much in agreement with post 19, and as for giving technical information about a photo, in my own case it is often totally irrelavant. When I take a Raw file and process it to my taste, then manipulate it to create an image that satisfies me. What the camera sees can often be simply the raw material. How can aperture and shutter speed be of any relevance. I acknowledge however that in many cases this is not the case and if it helps I'll give it. The important thing is whether the picture works and this can be seen in the image ie. whether the shutter speed was correct or the aperture sufficient.