Quote:
Originally Posted by Craftysnapper
Mmmm as to being a better judge of a bird photograph that would depend if you were looking at it as a natural history image or a pictorial image..a good natural history shot can be very boring  |
That is an excellent point. Some of my favourite shots are of rare and interesting fungi. But they send most people to sleep. But get a bee on a thistle, and you'll have them clapping in the aisles.
Tastes change too. Some people like to isolate a subject against a smooth background. But others find it artificial, and out of context. Some while back there was a craze for showing movement in a photograph in the form of blurring. Some would just find it blurry. It is not uncommon for the winner of a major natural history photo competitions to do nothing for me. In part judges will look for originality, and have probably seem look-a-likes of most images many times before.
I don't usually like giving critical feedback as I do not know what the other person wanted to achieve. But if someone says "Does this work" or "Can this be improved" I might post a comment.
I noticed many years ago when I read photo magazines, that photo journalists were often very scathing about readers pictures. And yet when a real photographer was asked to comment, they were usually complimentary, or made positive comments about improving the image. My take on that is that a working photographer knows how hard it is to get a good image, and has no reason to put down someone else.
Anyway, I agree with John's original posting. (What a lot of words just to get to that conclusion ... )