Learn the Language of Photography Through Critique | Eileen Rafferty
Effective photographic critique moves beyond personal taste to evaluate how deliberate technical and visual choices support a clear subject, evoke intended emotion, and communicate meaningful content.
Mastering the vocabulary of critique enables photographers to objectively diagnose why an image succeeds or fails, articulate artistic intent, and refine their work before public presentation.
Section summaries
Eileen Rafferty introduces the objective of the lecture at B&H: developing a robust verbal vocabulary to critique photographs constructively. She highlights that while photography is visual, photographers live in a verbal world where they must write artist statements, discuss their work, and engage with critiques. She lays out core guidelines, emphasizing that critique is subjective but can be structured objectively by moving beyond binary 'like/dislike' reactions. Critiques must address the image directly in front of the viewer rather than hypothetical alternatives, taking into account any accompanying titles, captions, or statements of intent.
- Articulating visual intent verbally is essential for proposals, statements, and portfolio reviews.
- Critique must focus strictly on the presented image rather than what the reviewer would have shot.
- Accompanying metadata, titles, and context significantly alter how an image is interpreted.
Establishes the foundational rules and ethical responsibilities of giving and receiving constructive critique.
Rafferty breaks down the photograph into its core components: subject, form, and content. She introduces the concept of visual hierarchy using theatrical and athletic metaphors, where the subject acts as the lead actor or lead cyclist and all other frame elements serve as supporting cast. Through examples of her own failed shots—such as a dancer overwhelmed by a busy carnival mural and a backlit tree ruined by distracting window reflections—she illustrates how cluttered frames undermine communication. Photographers must explicitly pinpoint what drew them to a scene and eliminate or suppress competing elements.
- The subject must dominate the frame as the unmistakable 'lead actor'.
- Distracting visual elements must be eliminated in-camera, cropped, or minimized in post-production.
- Self-critique requires honest discernment in filtering out images where the subject is obscured.
Crucial breakdown of visual hierarchy and practical methods for isolating the primary subject.
This section covers practical methods to reinforce the subject using technical and post-processing tools. Rafferty analyzes a shot of prayer flags in Sedona, demonstrating how cropping to a square, aligning diagonals, and selectively desaturating alluring blue skies and red rocks redirect the eye to the flags. Additional case studies demonstrate depth-of-field control with cherry tomatoes, low camera perspective and framing around a dog's head, and deliberate cropping of a human figure to direct narrative tension onto a dress in a window.
- Selective desaturation of naturally dominant colors (blues and greens) prevents background distraction.
- Shooting at eye level with subjects creates emotional intimacy and removes awkward angles.
- Excluding human faces shifts the visual focus from identity onto surrounding objects and conceptual themes.
Provides concrete before-and-after editing workflows demonstrating how to subordinate secondary elements.
Rafferty explores the formal building blocks of imagery: line, shape, texture, and color, alongside technical factors such as aperture, shutter speed, focus, and exposure. Using historical and contemporary work by Edward Weston, Elizabeth Stone, Uta Barth, Irving Penn, and Hiroshi Sugimoto, she explains how technical parameters dictate psychological impact. She contrasts Barth's committed soft-focus aesthetics with Penn's razor-sharp high-key portraits, and Sugimoto's long-exposure horizon symmetry with conventional composition rules, demonstrating that technical rules can be bent if done with total intentionality.
- Line, shape, texture, and color represent the primary fallback vocabulary when critiquing abstract images.
- Variations in exposure and color temperature drastically alter the emotional valence of identical scenes.
- Artistic rule-breaking requires deliberate, exaggerated execution to avoid appearing as technical error.
Deep dive into formal visual elements and how master photographers manipulate technical parameters for creative impact.
The discussion transitions to content—the narrative, metaphor, and emotional resonance within an image. Rafferty showcases documentary photojournalism by Jürgen Schadeberg during Apartheid, symbolic winter self-portraits, Edward Steichen's veiled portraits, and festive environmental details. She explains that content can be immediately visceral or heavily layered with symbolism. She compares academic critique models (describe, analyze, interpret, evaluate) with her streamlined framework: What do you see? What do you feel? What do you think?
- In photojournalism and documentary work, narrative content often supersedes formal composition.
- Loaded symbols and metaphors evoke subjective reactions that vary widely across different audiences.
- The simplified critique sequence—See (form), Feel (emotion), Think (meaning)—provides an accessible evaluation pipeline.
Bridges the gap between raw visual mechanics and deeper narrative interpretation.
Rafferty examines the neglected dimension of physical presentation, including scale, framing, matting, and exhibition sequencing, warning that poor presentation can ruin an otherwise strong concept. She addresses the breakdown that occurs when viewer interpretation diverges entirely from artist intent, emphasizing that widespread audience confusion requires structural re-evaluation. She cautions against destructive critiques and toxic reviewers, recounting a student who nearly quit photography due to an overly harsh critique, and outlines the ethical duty of the reviewer to provide constructive guidance.
- Physical presentation, scale, and framing choices must harmonize with the artwork's conceptual theme.
- If a panel of viewers consistently misinterprets an image, the artist's visual communication has failed.
- Constructive critique demands explaining *why* something fails and suggesting concrete paths for improvement.
Essential advice on critique etiquette, handling negative reviews, and presentation standards.
The audience participates in real-time critiques of diverse images. Rafferty displays an ambiguous composite self-portrait through a rainy window, gathering conflicting impressions (grief, hope, in-congruence) to illustrate how audience feedback reveals communicative clarity. She analyzes a sunny dog-and-tennis-ball image, showing why she cloned out a distracting background distraction. The section concludes with an exploration of diptych dynamics using paired river rock photos and an analysis of how monochrome conversion forces viewers to rely entirely on texture, line, and value rather than color.
- Diptychs require analyzing both individual frame mechanics and the conceptual interplay between images.
- Cloning out non-essential background artifacts preserves narrative focus and eliminates secondary eye paths.
- Monochrome photography places the entire compositional weight onto tonal value, shape, and surface texture.
Provides valuable interactive critique demonstrations, though largely reinforces previously established frameworks.
Rafferty analyzes images where a single element dominates the viewer's experience, rendering standard formal analysis secondary. Topics include intensely emotional portraits, overbearing post-processing techniques (heavy HDR, aggressive Photoshop filters), environmental narratives by Edward Burtynsky, and the profound impact of embedded text in Jim Goldberg's annotated documentary portraits. She emphasizes that when heavy techniques or text appear in an image, critics must directly interrogate why those choices were made and whether they enhance or obstruct the core concept.
- When an image is overwhelmed by emotion or processing, critiques must address that dominant element first.
- Heavy processing filters that do not serve the narrative obscure form, content, and subject.
- Text and signage within a frame are read instantly and fundamentally redefine photographic context.
Details how to evaluate specialized photographic modes like text-in-image, extreme HDR, and hyper-emotional portraiture.
The lecture concludes with strategies for critiquing abstract photography (Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind) where subject and meaning are intentionally obscured, leaving the critic to evaluate purely formal visual rhythms. Rafferty reviews technical diagnostic examples (missed focus, incorrect white balance) and demonstrates how series context (such as a father documenting his autistic child's perspective) completely alters critical interpretation. She closes with core recommendations: start with positive observations, stay strictly focused on the presented image, avoid projecting personal shooting habits, offer concrete suggestions, and end constructively.
- Critiquing abstract images relies on analyzing line, tonal gesture, balance, and surface geometry.
- Technical errors like mismatched white balance or missed focal planes must be identified and corrected objectively.
- Effective critiques begin and end with positive reinforcement while keeping advice tightly focused on the artwork.
Synthesizes the entire lecture with specific advice on abstract art and a practical blueprint for conducting critiques.
Key points
- The Tripartite Framework: Subject, Form, and Content — Every photograph can be deconstructed into its subject (the primary focus), form (visual and technical mechanics such as line, shape, texture, color, aperture, and shutter speed), and content (story, mood, and implied symbolism). When words fail in a critique, systematically addressing these three layers grounds the evaluation in objective observation.
- Visual Hierarchy and Supporting the Lead Role — The primary subject must function as the lead actor in a theatrical production, while every secondary visual element within the frame must deliberately support and direct attention to that subject. Any compositional, lighting, or background element that fails to support or actively competes with the main subject must be eliminated in-camera or minimized in post-processing.
- Intentionality Versus Technical Error — Unconventional technical choices—such as extreme motion blur, deep soft focus, or high-contrast Dutch angles—must be executed decisively and boldly to register as deliberate artistic statements. Subtle deviations or slight errors appear accidental, prompting viewers to diagnose them as technical mistakes rather than creative intent.
- The Interpretive Triad: See, Feel, Think — Critique operates through three progressive stages: identifying what is physically seen (formal/technical elements), registering what is emotionally felt (mood, somatic reaction), and interpreting what is intellectually thought (concept, metaphor, narrative). A successful photograph maintains harmony between these three stages.
“painters use paint dancers use their body writers use words we use light” — Eileen Rafferty
“if you're going to do something do it intentionally” — Eileen Rafferty
AI-generated from the transcript. May contain errors.
[Music]
thanks for having me I love coming to b&
I mean David said let's make it worth my
trip but it's always worth my trip
because excuse me uh I love where I live
I live in Missoula Montana but I grew up
on the east coast and so most of my life
I've been visiting New York City and
obviously I loved coming to New York
City once a year and getting my dose of
the city and the art and the food and
the people so I love coming here and I
love teaching at B&H because it's always
a captive excited audience so and they
pretty much let me teach any topic that
I want to which is very exciting uh so
this lecture um is going to be about
learning the language of a photograph
through critique kind of a wordy title
there but the point is that um I've
taught a lot of courses in visual design
before and composition uh most of what
teach for the last 10 years um has been
always associated with the visual side
of Photography uh and I'm really
interested in the Creative Cycle and the
creative process and as I said earlier
and as David said I've also been a photo
history teacher and buff for a long time
so those are the topics that I like to
teach uh I think it's very important to
teach the technical aspects of
Photography but there's lots of other
people doing that I've done that before
um for me I I think there's a lot less
people talking about the visual aspects
of Photography and and the creative side
of Photography so that's kind of where
my passion lies so um my idea for this
class is to learn the language of the
photograph but also hopefully by the end
of this class you'll all have some
skills in critiquing photographs as well
or talking about photographs because
that is a skill it's not something that
comes naturally and I'm sure any of you
in this room who've been how many people
here have had their images IED before
okay right so you know that sometimes
critiques are effective and good and
sometimes not so much right you all know
that it's a skill so we're going to talk
about how to do that so uh let's get
started really we're learning the parts
of the photograph the language about
talking about photographs in order to
give feedback to other people about
their photographs but then also in order
to be able to talk about our own and so
you know I've been a teacher for a very
long time I've interacted with a lot of
students and there might be some of you
even sitting here in the room thinking
this right uh and I would agree that we
are visual people and that our images
it's important if our images can say a
lot but we also live in a world of
language we live in a world where we
talk to each other and there's going to
be some time in your life as a
photographer where you're going to
either have to talk about your own work
write WR about your own work write an
artist statement write a proposal uh or
someone goes what kind of Photography do
you do or why do you do photography
right so I agree that we are visual
people and our images being strong and
speaking for themselves is a great thing
but I also think that we need to
understand how to talk about photographs
as well so some initial thoughts about
critiques uh that I think are kind of
important to just set the the guidelines
here is first of all they are subjective
right
um they come from each of our own
history and perspective and opinions and
whether you are the person giving the
feedback or getting the feedback It's
always important to remember this right
but we're going to talk about in the
lecture how to make it a little more
objective how to make it constructive
feedback right because I think that's a
really important thing I think when
you're talking about um photographs to
other people and giving feedback it's
really important to go beyond whether
you like or dislike the image uh you're
always going to have that immediate
reaction of liking or disliking an image
um but imagine as a teacher who's been
teaching for over 15 years with
thousands and thousands of students you
can't imagine that I would like every
single image that I've critiqued in my
life right but it's my job to help that
person to give them constructive
feedback and to help guide them into why
I personally think perhaps that the
image could be better why or how Okay so
it has to go beyond whether we just like
or dislike the image uh it's important
and I see this a lot it's important to
address the photograph that's in front
of us right how often have you been in a
situation where someone critiquing
images starts going off into some other
photograph what it should have been
could have been might have been or what
they would have done with a photograph
right I mean maybe there's a time in
place for that but it's really important
to just talk about the photograph that's
right in front of you that's the image
we're talking
about is there any other information
that can help meaning are there is there
a title to the image right is there an
artist statement or a statement of
intent that goes with it is there a
caption because we all know when there's
captions or titles it can really change
the context of the image so when we're
critiquing images it's important to know
if there's any other elements that go
along with it that can help tell the
story and then that really gets back to
do we can we get to the intention of the
photograph now we can't always do this
the only way perhaps that we can know
what the intention was from the
photographer is if the photographer is
there and we can talk to them which is a
great thing or if there is something
written about it like a statement or if
you go in a gallery and there's
something written so you can get some
context and we'll look at some examples
during the lecture of how the context of
an image can change the way we might
look at an
image okay so let's start by talking
about the parts of of a photograph so
we're going to kind of I like to break
things down as simply as possible so I
think that there's three sort of main
elements to a photograph it's the
subject the form and the content so
let's break each of these apart the
subject is simply as you can imagine
what is the main subject of the
photograph what is it a picture
of the form is all the visual elements
of the
photograph okay anything visual we're
going to break all these down even
more and then the content would be the
story the symbolism the idea the
meaning if there is any of that and if
we can know what any of that
is so these are really the main parts
and I think when you're learning to
critique images or talk about images I
like I said I like to break it down so
if you can it's going to happen at some
point where an image is going to come up
and you're going to want to talk about
it and you're going to go you're you're
speech
and speechless can happen because it's
so wonderful or it can happen because
it's not so wonderful right so you kind
of have to have these things to fall
back on you can always start to talk
about the subject and the form okay so
as an example this is a photograph of
mine from the Outer Banks of North
Carolina one of my favorite
places we could say the subject is a
house on a sand
dune we could also say the subject is a
house at the beach or at the ocean if
you could see that it's at the beach or
the ocean the form would be it's a blue
house uh it's a pretty desaturated
image uh it's using a pretty good A
pretty broad depth of
field um it's using negative space and
composition right because the house is
tucked down in the corner and there's
lots of negative space so already I've
talked about some technical aspects like
the aperture uh we've talked about the
color of the house we've talked about
the saturation we've talked about the
composition okay so those are all formal
aspects um we could also say it's sort
of monochromatic right it doesn't have a
lot of variety and colors in it okay and
then the
meaning may or may not be evident um but
maybe I give you some backstory and you
understand or maybe it's called
grandfather's
Cottage okay or some title that gives
you some sense that this is a beach
house that's been in the family a long
time this was my grandfather's this is
where we spent holidays I'm making all
this up not really I wish I wish I had a
house at the Outer Banks uh but meaning
so it could be the story around it if
you're if you have that information okay
so this is just an example of subject
form content
okay
okay so let's start with talking about
the subject a little more so is the
subject
clear uh is it obscured right because
the subject isn't always apparent we're
going to look at some examples when we
think of abstract images then sometimes
we don't know what the subject is it's
not identifiable okay and we'll talk
about how to talk about subject um
abstract images but this is something
that I've been saying for a really long
time that when I'm teaching visual
design or when I'm teaching any students
about the visual side of photography I
think it's really important to create
hierarchy in your image and if you've
watched any of my visual design or
composition videos or taken any of my
classes um I talk about this a lot okay
so imagine when you go to a play there's
never any doubt of who the leading actor
is right it's not like who's the star of
the show okay so there's the star the
leading role and then there's all The
Supporting Cast and The Supporting Cast
is there to support the actor okay or
think of the Tor to France the lead
rider in the pelaton right the other
Riders on the team do not try to win the
Races they support the lead rider in the
bicycling race so that he will win the
race most often okay I think a
photograph should be the same way your
subject should be the leading role and
everything that's included in the frame
should be supporting the leading role if
the leading role if the subject is not
the leading role well something has gone
a miss right if if the viewer doesn't
know what the subject is and I don't
mean an abstract image that's a little
different we'll talk about that but I
mean if you come to an image and you
don't immediately know what the subject
is it can leave confusion or the viewer
is suddenly not invited into the image
because it's like I don't even know what
this is about
or there's so much in the frame that I
don't know what was most important I
don't know what the photographer wanted
me to look at so it's really important
as the photographer to identify what is
your subject and that sounds simple but
ask yourself how many times when you're
actually shooting are you asking
yourself that question what is my
subject and when you answer that
question it's important to get specific
okay meaning it's not just well it's
that
landscape right it's more specific spe
maybe it's the light falling on the
leaves on that tree in that landscape
okay so if you can get specific with
what why are you making this picture
what Drew you to make this picture then
you can begin to make decisions whether
that's technical or visual to highlight
what the subject is okay so everything
in the frame I believe should support
the subject and if there's anything in
the frame that doesn't support the
subject or detracts from the subject it
either needs to be removed or
minimized by technical Choice by
composition perspective or sometimes
post-processing right so the subject
generally is the leading star the lead
actor okay so when we're critiquing work
it's important I think to be able to
identify the subject most often I also
want to say as a little caveat there's
no hard fast rules um in photography I'm
a big fan of um I think there's a lot of
gray area in photography meaning you
will probably I won't often say you
should always or you should never do
this or that okay so that's why I'm
saying things like
generally uh are there elements in the
scene that are detracting from the
subject okay if there are it's important
to identify them talk about them and
talk about how to remove them improve
them so I'll use images in my lecture
just so you know um any of my lectures I
use images of mine I use a lot of images
from photo history because I think
there's so many f fantastic ones I use
images from contemporary photographers
colleagues so I will always try most
often to say who the photographer is but
if not you can certainly ask me uh this
is Harry Callahan and we'll talk about
him in the creative Muse class this is
his wife Elanor so here's an example of
the subject being very clear right
there's no question the subject is the
woman she's staring at the camera she's
sharp she's large in the frame right and
the background is out of focus it's in
the background so I don't think there
was anything distracting from
her okay I'm going to show I'm being
very brave in this lecture and I'm
showing a lot of my images that didn't
work it's really fun as a teacher to be
able to show all your best images but I
need to use images as examples and I
didn't want to use my students images of
what's not working and embarrass them
publicly so I'll use my own so this is
uh this is like the Montana State Fair
really fun you know Festival in the
summer and I saw this is a giant wall
with this wall mural on it I thought it
was really funny and I asked my friend
to get down below and dance and so I
took a bunch of pictures of her dancing
but I think that this is a situation
where the subject isn't it's not really
working I didn't really convey that okay
because I wanted the subject to be her
dancing and her sort of being goofy and
interacting in front of this mural um
but there's some choices that I made
that I think are
not communicating that one she's very
small in the frame two she's
blurred three she's wearing muted
clothing right and then her and then the
mural behind her is everything that
she's not it's big it's bold it's bright
it's sharp right so I think this is an
example where it had potential it was
kind of fun um but I don't think the
subject or my idea really came through
would you all probably agree with what I
said there I wanted this interaction of
her and the funny the funny scene of her
underneath these hilarious dancers so
yeah but I think we can always say why
didn't I do this why didn't I do that
right um we shoot fast we shoot quick we
shoot with our intuition and as you all
know I mean so many of our images don't
work right the key is in being
Discerning and when we decide which
images get through to the other side to
show right you have to be Discerning
there and say okay this one didn't work
so no one has seen this image well now
the world has apparently so um it
doesn't work yeah the world meaning
whoever's going to watch the video on
YouTube and everybody in the room here's
another picture that I don't think works
you guys are going to look at this
lecture and be like God she's an awful
photographer I have some of my good
stuff in here too um it takes courage to
show your images that don't work but so
okay so I'm using this as an example
because that idea of what was my sub
object okay I'm telling you what I was
drawn to was this beautiful light
falling on that tree the shape of the
tree and then the blown out highlights
it's like summer it says summer to me
right summer bright light um you can
tell I'm I think you can tell I'm
looking through a kitchen window so you
know I don't think this image worked
because I did not make what I was drawn
to very important in the frame there's a
lot of other things distracting from it
okay I think the window frame frame
itself I forgot that my pointer doesn't
really show up on the TV so the window
frame itself is distracting the light
above the window is distracting um
actually this reflection of what's
Happening inside the dress I'm wearing
or whatever is distracting okay so
again this image didn't work because I
did not remove all the elements of the
frame that we distracting now in
postprocessing if I really wanted to say
there's these images I would probably
crop in the top I would probably do some
processing I would try to minimize this
I would try to bring this out okay but
I've decided that this isn't an image
worth saving
okay and this is my funny slide of this
is how to be a landscape photographer in
Montana right make sure you include the
Big Sky make sure you include some wild
animals wild animals this is my friend
and I was just making fun of her like
really you're taking that picture Okay
so but it's very clear what subject is
it's the cow it's the Big Sky yeah
shooting through the barb wire okay my
unnamed friend that I won't say Okay so
the way that you can support the subject
or all the ways that we can communicate
what the subject is in our images and
when we're talking and critiquing about
images all the things we need to
consider is okay well the composition is
a big one right the way you compose that
frame will determine how important the
subject is okay our technical decisions
right our aperture our depth of field
our shutter speed our lens Choice our
focal length right all those choices
when we're shooting in the field will
determine if the subject is the lead
actor or
not and again things that we need to
focus on when we're talking about
photographs perspective okay again lens
Choice are using a wide angle and
putting the subject large in frame are
you using a shallow depth of field and a
long lens where is the photographer
standing okay if you're shooting a
little dandelion are you getting down on
the ground close to the dandelion okay
uh so your position where the
photographer stands will also determine
the importance of the subject in the
frame and then of course postprocessing
is a big one right there's a lot we can
do in post-processing now does that mean
we spend all of our time in front of the
computer trying to save bad images
please no please um however I do think
post processing is a very important part
of what we do and I know that everybody
lies on a spectrum of how much
processing they like to do and everybody
would like to say that anel Adams would
not you know use Photoshop which is so
false he would be a Photoshop Master
okay he would be manipulating his images
highly in Photoshop because that's what
he did in the dark room right so um
postprocessing in post-processing
there's ways that we can support the
subject by minimizing other elements
okay whether that's cropping an element
out or darkening something and
lightening the subject okay desaturating
things there's lots of ways we can do
that we'll look at some examples
later so let's look at an example of an
image that I feel that as I took it
didn't really work but this is what I
ended up with that I think is a much
better image okay so this is in Sedona
so let me kind of walk you through how
this happened you know I saw the scene I
took quite a few shots I mean not not a
ton I'm I'm not a rapid fire shooter I
grew up in the days of film medium
format uh so you know yeah 20 30 images
is a lot um I don't take
hundreds uh so you know this image I
probably took 20 shots of in different
ways and you know I was drawn to the
prayer Flags against the blue sky but I
also wanted the inclusion of the Rocks
because it it gives a sense of place
it's Sedona and they're so known for
those rocks and so I wanted those
included so I think that here would you
agree that maybe there's a little
confusion as to what I was wanting to
bring your eye to I mean the scene in
general but the Rocks important the blue
skies the Loring the flags okay so this
is what I did in
processing so I cropped it to
square I straightened The Horizon a
little more and I did that not
necessarily to like straighten the
Horizon but I did that to create more of
this very strong diagonal between the
Rock and the prayer Flags so they're
sort of mimicking each other what else
did I do in
processing I desaturated the sky right
because blue skies as is green grass are
very alluring so if green grass or blue
skies aren't your main subject I often
will desaturate and minimize them okay
because unless you saw this image first
which you all did but if you came to
this image first you wouldn't know that
Sky looked like before I gave you this
example okay so you might be sitting
here going well I like the sky blue well
that's my job as a photographer to
decide what I want it to look like okay
I also brightened the flags a little bit
I saturated the flags just a touch I
also as you can see slightly desaturated
the Red Rocks
slightly um that's about all I did okay
but I think that this makes it a little
more clear in my eyes I think the flags
become most important and then the sky
and the Rocks feel like a setting for
the flags
okay so we make all sorts of choices
right here what technical tool did I use
here to draw your attention to the
subject right shallow depth of field
very shallow depth of field right what
else is drawing your eyes to the subject
color right so that that blue chair in
the background could have been
distracting I threw it out of focus I
actually desaturated it just
slightly uh and then you know there's
beautiful light on the cherry tomatoes
as well which we can always always
please always use light right
photographers we can forget sometimes
that it is our medium painters use paint
dancers use their body writers use words
we use
light I know my dog my dog uh so what
choices did I make here first of all is
there any question what the subject is
no no okay um what choices did I make
here to really highlight the subject and
not create any
question yeah that's one of the big ones
here I got down on his level right I'm
not shooting from above so you know
we're we're connecting on this level
with the dog right and then he's sort of
looking off and it sort of makes us
curious of like well he just also looks
like he's just basking in the sun on a
winter day right compositionally I was
very aware of where this you know not so
beautiful dead plant um was to his head
I sort of framed it around him because I
took a couple shots at first and then
saw that yeah you know protruding from
his ear and I was like yeah I don't like
that so I made sure it sort of kind of
just curved around his ear I placed him
off to the side slightly and then
there's a fun red ball which adds that
element of you know play but also draws
attention to him right
okay but the point is is the things that
we're notice there's also you know and
you we can't always do this but there's
catch light in the eyes right when we
shoot living Figures it's really good to
have catch light in the eyes because if
we don't then they their eyes look dead
right so and luckily he was looking
towards the light so you know I didn't I
wasn't like move to the left dog you
know um so but again there was nothing
really I I don't think in the frame that
is distracting from
him okay what about this um what were
some choices here this is another image
of
mine well I definitely wanted the dress
to be I mean there's there's a
connection between the dress and the
girl because they're the only two things
in the frame but by putting the girl off
the edge of the frame I sort of made her
secondary okay if I would have included
her face and head in the frame we
connect with human faces as soon as we
see them she would have been the
star like that so by eliminating her
face
uh I think it hopefully draws more
attention to the Dress notice I also
desaturated the rest of the scene and I
actually saturated the
dress okay I mean that red brick wall
was more red the red dress everything so
um and then I wanted there hopefully to
be this sort of back and forth
connection or question between the girl
and the dress the girl and the dress and
this is just a series it's actually
self-portrait it's a series of
photographs that I did on the idea of
play and getting older and youth um you
know hence the pigtail as well the
braid um notice also some compositional
choices um notice you know how the dress
is floating in that window frame not
being blocked by any of the window frame
okay
um also notice how I was pretty careful
to have the horizontal lines of the
bricks line up with horizontal edge of
my frame so there's not a lot of skewing
happening I have some very verticals and
horizontals
okay okay so we know we this that
photograph is broken down into subject
form and content okay we just talked a
lot about the subject so let's talk
about form I mean form is a big one when
we're critiquing and talking about
images because it's all the visual stuff
right so first we're going to talk about
the visual aspects of form and then
we're going to talk about the technical
aspects of form so the the basic
building blocks for all photographs is
line shaped texture and color those are
our formal elements of a
photograph line shape texture and color
so these are always things that you can
talk about if if you're at a loss for
words or if you're not uh that things
that we can identify in a photograph
when we're talking about it okay so this
photograph of line shape texture and for
and and color yeah I'd say color is a
probably pretty primary one here I'd say
color first and then shape and texture
feel kind of important as well yeah and
we have complimentary colors right
opposite each other on the color wheel
yellow and blue
right here's a historical photograph
this is Edward Weston um shape and
texture I would say I think the texture
is very important and shape for
sure I think the shapes are really
important here was at a hot springs I
saw my friend standing in front of this
these weird plastic things hanging
texture was a big one too because of the
way the light was coming through these
sort of plastic sheets hanging there was
pretty important to me too but her shape
and the repeating all the squares you
know sort of rectangles and then the
light coming through and raling texture
were pretty pretty big there was not a
lot of color in the
scene yep so shape and
texture this is in the sanan islands I
used to do shop there um I think I think
I can say cuz I'm the photographer uh
that the color drew me immediately that
was the first thing that I saw was these
Lush greens and then the the old trailer
was like kind of this rusted faded
orange greenish uh so that was the first
thing that Drew me and then of course
the textures of this Lush grass against
this old you know rotting metal hunk
just sitting there then when I composed
the scene I really paid attention to the
arrangement of the shapes that was
important
okay color is a big one right and we
have to when we talk about photographs
and I'm not going to get into color
theory here I do um actually B&H has one
of my visual design lectures up and I do
get into color theory but um color of
course as we know has a lot of impact on
the way we see images imagine if this
were blue or red or white how different
it would feel from the gold okay so
that's an important thing to talk about
when we talk about images is the the
that impact the emotional impact of
color okay but yeah I'd say color is a
big one here this is my friend Elizabeth
Stone's
image this is a photograph of mine as
well um I was really drawn to the a lot
of the repeating lines all those really
strong horizontal lines and the color is
something I added in postprocessing okay
you can imagine it wasn't this sort of
neon looking um and I did this mimic uh
cross processing in film when we used to
cross process film and you get those
funky colors um when you take film and
process it in the wrong chemicals uh so
I tweak to the colors in this one and
processing to kind of throw it out of
reality a little bit with the really
prominent Reds and greens and yellows
but I prefer to have a little bit of
mystery in images quite a bit um and
so for me this this was my friend and I
and we were you know dressed up and
photographing each other and um but it
was this the scene of the motel itself
that was so intriguing to me and I just
wanted some human element but I also
liked that it looked like she was
rushing she's got her bags she's blurred
she's sort of running out of the frame
or she's at the edge of the frame and I
think that creates tension well I know
that when someone's at the edge of the
frame it creates tension and also when I
think of motels No Vacancy I think of
travel movement and I kind of wanted to
add to that feeling of again movement
travel um you know her sort of looking
like she's rushing or you know not
relaxing in the
scene is it creating depth okay because
often and not in all of our photographs
but often um we want to create a
foreground mid-ground background if
that's what you want to do in your
images visually and I would agree that
this would feel like a very flat plane
um but she does add this other element
of depth to it the subject is a little
more conceptual it's not obvious and
that's true and and this would be
something where context is important
because this is one of a series of
photographs about this girl at this
hotel um so there's more of a story when
you see the other images and you're
absolutely right I had the idea and the
concept and then made the images based
on the idea yep but we don't always we
can't always see the series we can't
always know the concept
right so another image that I sort of
had the concept for it and was
photographing my friend in this old
abandoned building okay so I think it
was very much about the texture here for
me and just the scene in general you can
see elements that I included like the
unplugged
refrigerator you know the line of the
cord um the place looks kind of empty uh
you know she looks like she's got her
sort of cleaning clothes on with her
apron um so I then as you can imagine
processed it once again with this sort
of bluish greenish cast okay to sort of
add to that feeling of um you know I
don't know emptiness it was an empty
place and so imagine how different this
would feel if it was you know warm
golden light right so again I processed
it to change the mood of the
photograph and my point of this is if
you're critiquing images and the
processing is as obvious as this it
needs to be talked about right it's very
obvious that this isn't this how the
scene actually looked I think most of
you would know right that we is not how
we see the world in this sort of neon
crossprocessed color so that's something
when you're giving feedback on images
that would be important to address uh is
it working is it not working what kind
of mood is it creating so I think
processing is important to talk about
when it's obviously processed again
remember critiques are subjective yeah
so we're talking you know know the point
of this class is more to talk about what
we can talk about when we look at
photographs okay and then it's always
important to make a suggestion of why
you feel like something could be
different or changed okay so some other
formal aspects that we can talk
about are all the technical choices that
we use that change the visual look of
our image aperture shutter speed Focus
exposure all those things right those
Baseline things that we learned as new
photographers and we still use
constantly
right so for instance you know the
choice to use a very shallow depth of
field versus a large depth of
field the choice of shutter speed to use
with moving objects okay these are all
things that we can talk about when we
talk about
images again shutter speed
choices but then also look at the
difference in exposure in these this is
the same image just exposed very
differently this is my friend Elizabeth
Stone she's my teaching partner look how
different the image feels this one
versus the light one right the other one
has like this light Airy sense of
possibility and this one feels very for
boing to me look how much detail also is
seen in the birds here versus that one
okay so choice of exposure whether
that's in camera or in processing later
can really change the mood of the
photograph this is the Contemporary
photographer UDA bar
okay who specializes a lot in soft focus
images okay so she purposely I mean
meaning you this is where context
matters I mean if you were talking to
UDA bar and you were like it's out of
focus it should be sharp it would be
like quiet sit down um because this is
what she does right everything she makes
almost everything she makes is purposely
thrown out of focus it's also important
to know so so maybe you might say well I
didn't know that about UDA bar what you
know however I think when you look at
this image this is not a focus problem
you know what I mean and this is why you
know when I teach my students I say if
you're going to do something do it
intentionally you know like really do it
if if you just slightly throw it out a
focus it looks like a mistake it looks
like you didn't Focus your camera or
your lens didn't Focus your autofocus
didn't work so if you want to do soft
focus you have to really throw it out of
focus to make it look very intentional
and purposeful okay okay so I think you
could you know in other words if we were
talking about this image I don't think
we would say well your focus is totally
off no I think we would probably
understand the photographer did that on
purpose and then it would be very much
about the shapes and the color in the
frame and again it's not about if you
like it or don't like it okay when when
we need to talk about
images Irving Penn one of the great
greatest Studio photographers who ever
lived
right okay so a photographer like UDA
bar who chooses to use very soft focus
and then Irving pen look at the insane
detail in this image right I mean the
choices he made here the black and white
uh the really really beautiful detail
the choice though to have no detail or
light outside of her face you know that
that looks like a very purposeful choice
so again this is probably not a a an
image where we would say there's no
detail on your
blacks
right you know I think I think we can
tell I we maybe we didn't know it's IR
if we knew was iring pen we of course
know it's on purpose but you know this
is where we could talk about things like
the beautiful light um the texture
that's being revealed because it is in
black and white um and the Beautiful
excellent sharp Focus right and that
choice of not having any detail in the
hair just draws us in
to the
face
right yeah the beautiful
eyes so sugamoto my all-time favorite
photographer let me just go on record by
saying that sugamoto if you'd ever like
to meet me I'd love to meet you like
he's watching my b& lecture he studios
in Paris Tokyo and New York I don't
think he's I think he's busy doing
something else um but he's Japanese just
really interesting photographer and you
some of you might might know his work
he's in CHS in New York quite a bit and
this is a project that he did many years
ago called seascapes so he went around
the world and photograft um different
seas around the world and what's really
cool about that project is you know he
talks that he doesn't just go and snap
shots he will go and stay at the place
for months and just sort of live with it
um but my point of showing this here is
we're talking about you know um the
technical choices we make so here's an
example where uh he's allowed the ocean
to go really out of focus okay probably
using a very long exposure so that EB
and flow of the water is blurring that
Horizon here's another that he shot
where he chose to have a little more
detail from his choice of shutter
speed and then here's another one
whereas it's somewhere in between
okay this is also an example where
especially if you see three of his
images I think sugamoto probably knows
about the rule of not putting the
Horizon in the middle of the frame I
mean I think in other words I think
that's a creative choice he's making I
don't think we would say to sugamoto
here well I think if you brought it up
in the upper third or lower third you
create more visual interest I think he's
definitely um and he doesn't do this
with all of his seascapes but he's
creating this feeling of symmetry and
balance by doing that now if that
Horizon were off kilter that would be
something to address okay because if we
want a horizon off-kilter again we got
to throw it off-kilter if it's just
slightly off-kilter it looks like a
mistake okay so the last thing is
content and we're going to look at lots
of examples and then we're going to
critique images together so content
think this is the other part that we can
talk about and I left this one to last
for last because this can often be the
harder part of talking about photographs
right
what is the story what is the implied
meaning is there a symbol or metaphor
there may be there may not be but if
there's one that's obvious it's kind of
important to address we'll look at
examples is the meaning apparent or
hidden documentary photographs the story
is usually very prevalent right
photojournalism usually pretty
prevalent does it evoke a mood a memory
emotion and this is where it gets
subjective right every single one of us
in the room perhaps might get a
different mood or memory or emotion from
a
photograph or everyone in the room might
get the same one depending on how clear
that you know that communication is
right but these are all important things
to talk about when we talk about the
content okay I mean the story the
content of this photo graph is the first
thing that I think you probably see okay
and this is my point as well is subject
form content there's no order of what
you talk about first what's most
important it's basically what hits you
first and in this image you're not going
to probably start talking about all the
use of all the vertical lines first
right you're going to look at it and be
like wow what a catch what an
interesting story you know this is in
South Africa during a partti a partti
this is um Jurgen shadur is his name
he's a South African photographer um so
the story is the first thing that hits
you and I'm not saying that then you
wouldn't go and talk about the vertical
lines the use of these repetitive lines
okay but probably not the first thing
right the sense of tension here I mean
that the mood everything that's evoked
in this I think is is pretty
important those would be the first
things that I would talk
about so again
an image of mine um you know is the
meaning immediately obvious maybe maybe
not Resurrection Life
Seasons optimism Mother Nature I mean
you're hitting you're hitting them all I
mean this is deep in the winter this is
like March and winter in Montana we have
long Winters there and it so and also I
like the the um the mention of optimism
as well uh because it was I was you know
having a really just tough week tough
day and I was out and my friend drugged
me out for a photo shoot and I just
grabbed some props and I one of the
props I grabbed was this little Fern and
it was about Hope and optimism and
spring and what's coming and growth
growth in a desolate otherwise desolate
environment it's about all the things
you're talking about right so again um
you know this story might not be as
obvious as this story
but I think that that's where the
symbolism or meaning can have should
probably be important to talk about and
is different for everybody in the room
or not uh Edward siken great historical
photographer right so we're talking
about content right
um I mean I think texture is something
you would talk about probably
immediately when you saw this but what
other content or stories or symbols
comes up when you see this image facial
expression for sure would be important
to address emotion right and then
identifying what those emotions are like
what would you say she looks angry okay
demonic is a word okay so someone in
mourning there's a symbol that comes up
for someone else is the Black Veil and
what that symbolizes very mysterious I
would agree I mean when our faces are
covered or a face is covered in an image
I do think that it there's a removal
from us in the person even though she's
looking right at us and then again the
facial expression so all those things
would be really important to talk about
with this image if we were talking to
Edward he were in the
room surprise I love that
uncertainty holiday winter for sure
winter yep and I think it would be
important to talk about that that shot
of red in the otherwise black and white
landscape is pretty intentional sort of
Asian looking curiosity
isolation you guys are great you don't
even need this
class so yeah this is an image of mine
and it has to do with all those things
you were talking about a lot of them are
resonating um it was also for me that
idea of kind of hanging on it's actually
late fall you know and that that apple
is just I mean it's you could tell it's
rotted it's encased in ice and it's just
still hanging on and it's probably the
last one on the tree and you know it's
going down at some point um so yeah it
was that sort of you
know that that yeah surprise I like that
element did you say surprise was the
word I lik that word you know finding it
first of all but then that sort of like
I said that kind of hanging on the
inevitability of what that it was going
to drop and Winter's coming right not
everybody has to know that it's actually
an apple okay so an example where the
subject maybe isn't the most important
thing to talk about here but I think the
symbol the symbolism the metaphor is
something that maybe came forward more
or that you could talk
about uh can you tell what the subject
matter immediately of this image
is you know people said oh well the
banner or the lights but then someone
said it's a party right so the the
subject matter really is the event right
so yeah it is probably a celebration of
some sort would everybody agree that it
feels like a celebration of some sort
right now the the banner is in language
that we may or may not know um but can
we can we deduce I mean we've already
told that it's a
celebration welcome it says welcome yes
is it
welcoming okay so you know just an
example again of the feeling and emotion
and mood of it I hope that it's
welcoming to you I hope that the lights
and the sign and the open door and the
warmth of it would make you want to step
in no someone's going no and maybe not
everybody in the room it does again
that's why it's subjective and you might
ask well I mean this is a wedding I shot
but what you know back in the day why
did I not just step in and take the shot
well I'm sure I did that too because I'm
shooting a wedding so I shot a lot of
them but one I wanted the welcome sign
and two I wanted the rustic wood Doorway
to kind of give a sense of place of what
this place was
like okay so if we look at um if you
look at like academic um how-to
critiques okay often this is a sort of
list of what is on the academic how to
critique meaning it's important to
describe and this isn't just for
photography I looked at this up for like
anything okay so to describe to analyze
to interpret and then to
evaluate okay uh but again I like to
kind of break things down in a simpler
way so when I look at these I think
comes down to what do you
see what does it feel like and then what
do you think about
it okay it's kind of that subject form
content what do you see what do you feel
and what do you
think okay so when we talk about what we
see I mean this is pretty much what
we've talking about been talking about
for the last hour we need to talk about
sometimes the technical things we might
talk about the sharpness we might talk
about the exposure the white balance the
subject itself the depth of
field okay we might talk about these
because they're
off we might not talk about them at all
because maybe some of the images that
came up the concept or story was
so you know potent that you're not going
to be talking about the use of shallow
depth the field or the other thing is if
these are all good meaning they're not
mistakes then often we might not go
there and talk about them meaning we're
probably not going to bring up white
balance if white balance looks good but
we are going to talk about it if it
looks off right we're probably not going
to talk about exposure if the exposure
is
good okay and I don't mean notice I
don't say if it's right because there's
no right or wrong for exposure you can
choose to over underexpose that's your
creative choice
okay however if your highlights are
blown out and it's distracting from your
subject or it's problematic in the frame
then you might talk about that okay so
these are things we can talk about we
can also talk about the formal aspects
line shapes textures and colors if they
seem important or prominent in the
picture we can also talk about the
composition the perspective where the
photographer stood and the lens choice
and then what the gentleman in the back
pointed out is presentation when it gets
to that point if we're looking at not
just a digital file on a screen but a
print on a
wall presentation's really important I
would venture to say that photographers
we probably the ones who drop the ball
the most on presentation of any
collection of artists on the
planet uh meaning you know when dancers
go to their production they're not not
thinking about the costumes and when
painters hang their paintings they're
not thinking they're thinking about the
edges and at what level they're hung at
and the scale of their painting they're
considering that before they even start
the scale
right um so I think that we often and
especially more so in the digital age
where we don't print and present as much
so kudos to all of you who are doing
that and having portfolio views and
making prints and um you know
presentation's really important and it's
a very powerful tool
uh scale and installation and how things
are framed and shown are really
important that can help communicate an
idea or they can help kill an idea I've
seen many presentations of my students
work in their final where it was like I
mean luckily I would work with them
through so it was never a surprise at
the end but you know I've definitely
seen presentations where the
presentation harmed the overall message
idea or visual of the project itself it
wasn't in it wasn't in harmony with it
or it was choices were made because the
student just thought it was cool you
know and it didn't actually um it didn't
actually help communicate the idea or
sometimes the presentation can be
distracting you know if you're using
elements that aren't supporting the
subject what do you feel when you look
at the image okay the mood the emotion
is it evoking every other
senses um one of the assign ments that i
g would give my students um in the
visual studies program at Rocky Mount
school photography was the first
assignment I gave them because I kind of
wanted them to freak out a little bit um
and I would have them photograph a sense
other than
site and I would say I want to smell it
I want to taste it I want to feel it or
I want to hear
it okay so is there another sensory you
know sometimes when you look at an image
you can almost feel what it would feel
like or you could smell it imagine a
picture of you know popcorn ever
okay does it evoke a memory an
association is there a reaction that
happens those would be important to talk
about and then of course I'm kind of
summarizing what we've talked about in
the last hour just bringing it to the
seaf think what do you think is there a
story is there a message is the
photographer communicating
something is there an idea a metaphor a
symbol there may or may not be but if
there's a prevalent one then it's
important to talk
about so what I'm essentially saying is
is what you are seeing and feeling
helping to support an idea story or
message if these are in
congruent um then something's gone aide
okay and we've all been there before
whether it's our own images or someone
else's I mean it's happened a million
times with students where we have a
critique and there's all this feedback
and the students like well that's that's
to you guys are all off Bas that's
totally not what I meant by this
Photograph and that's where I would say
Okay critiques are subjective but if 20
people in the room are getting the same
message and that message is off base
then you got to listen to that right or
if 20 people say that choice of
presentation that choice of processing
that lens Choice whatever isn't
working versus one person saying that I
think then we have to kind of lesen
listen um so you know if what you're
seeing and feeling is
completely in left field from what the
photographer intended if the
photographer is there to talk to about
it then you need to start to do that you
know brainstorming and helping of okay
what went wrong here why are we all
feeling this when you wanted us to feel
this why did none of us get the metaphor
or symbol that you were going for what
what choices did you make that took us
off base or what choices can you make to
bring us closer to what you're trying to
communicate
okay this is why you know I think
critiquing is a very important skill and
I think that there's you take a lot of
responsibility in your hands when you
choose to critique someone else's work
and if you're not interested in giving
constructive criticism then don't do it
and your responsibility is to then guide
that person and help them understand
what you're getting from the image and
help them perhaps move to a better place
with it and I say this because not
everybody is meant to critique and not
not all people are good at critique and
I've definitely I've certainly been in
the situation I got a master of Fine
Arts in grad school trust me I've been
there right anybody's been in art grad
school you've had the critique where
they just
go squash what good is that what does
that do right um it's that's just as
good as the critique that everybody just
goes Bravo great job it's beautiful what
do that that doesn't do anything for me
why is it beautiful why Bravo what's
working what's not working right I mean
if I I've had clients contact me former
students who were ready to I had one who
took down his website and was ready
ready to quit photography and he was a
fantastic photographer because he sought
out a local photographer that he
respected and admired in his town to
give him feedback and the guy obviously
was jealous and threatened by him was my
deduction and he totally annihilated the
kid annihilated him and the kid was
about to quit and I said to him first of
all that was one person's perspective he
was competition in your town or your
competition to him and if someone just
annihilates you that's that's not a
critique you you got it's hard to here I
mean we we hold on to it but you got to
go get some more feedback right so again
it's important to help when we give
feedback to help the people understand
what's working and what's not working in
our own humble
opinions okay so did the visual
technical choices the photographer make
help to support a subject and
communicate
something okay so let's start looking at
some images and asking this question
okay and thinking of our C field
think and I'm not throwing you the most
straightforward images all the time
right
so um ask yourself this question right
and this
question what what words come to mind
when you look at this Photograph and I
got nerves of Steel so don't worry I'm
not going to get offended by 34s one
quarter okay wet wet random random what
is it so okay so some people get stuck
on if they don't know what it is you can
have a hard time talking about it but
remember if you don't know what it is
you can always fall back on all the
visual what are you seeing visually or
what are you feeling and if you're not
feeling anything and then you don't know
what it is well then you're left with
talking about the visual
aspects some people might immediately
feel something wet right or something
else um and then other people are just
going I don't even know what to say
that's where you go to the visual
aspects what other words come to mind
when you look at this image in congruous
in
congruous
confusing okay and for you it evoked a
feeling of being on a train and looking
out the
window it feels sorrowful sorrowful and
someone else in the room might be going
I don't get that but that's good for you
to say it feels sorrowful it feels like
something's being pulled away because of
the image on the bright and it's good to
identify why why it feels like
something's being pulled away and you
said because of the image on the right
okay and I think perhaps maybe it's
because the image on the right is out of
focus and there's a sense of
distance okay so it's good to kind of
keep going with those thoughts of why
what choices were made that makes it
feel that
way it feels optimistic you use the word
hopeful spring so let's go a little
further with that what why do you get
the sense of what elements there are
giving you the sense of spring for
instance yeah the green and the
raindrops the person's also wearing
white which could give that feeling of
hopefulness
perhaps does it work exactly so I can
tell you what my thought process was
around it one person hit on it which was
spring and hope um however from my
perspective the fact that and also
there's people sitting in the room who
aren't talking of course so it could be
that half the room felt spring in Hope
and I'm just not getting that I I mean
if we're in a critique where the people
critiquing they're all talking which
we're not doing here and that's fine
then you know I'd get more feedback from
the panel in other words um however if I
were in a portfolio review and I'd be
hearing from all these people um when I
you know when the first words I hear are
things like in congruent random
confusing that's important for me to
hear right that's important for me to go
okay um that it there's an Inc in
congruence between the images it left
people feeling
confused um you know and then and then
there was you know a person who sort of
picked up on the raindrops and the color
and all of that so is it working or not
in my opinion even though it's my image
and I like it and you know there's also
that element for all of us that you were
just like I don't really care I don't
think that my perception of this image
was communicated clearly um because
that's not the feedback that I got from
majority of the people so if I were
really trying to communicate what the
one person got then I would have to make
some other decisions along the way okay
however because all of our images are
our own and it's up to us what we want
our images to do and say um I I didn't
need this image to clearly communicate
spring and hope to everyone like to me
it's just kind of pretty and it means
those things to me but I'm fine that it
means other things to other people okay
but if I were really trying to
communicate spring and hope I would have
to make some other choices along the way
because that's not what I got from the
crowd and if you're just wondering what
it is I shot rain through a
window um so this is the photograph the
entire photograph was green grass
through a rainy window and then I
composited this image into it which is a
self-portrait of me thrown out of focus
so I work a lot with compositing and dip
ticks and I was kind of playing with the
figure with so yeah now also keep in
mind this is not a critique setting
meaning one person would never be in a
room with 50
people 50 random New Yorkers thank God
getting feedback like this is not that's
not how it works right you you go to a
portfolio review and you talk to five or
six people or you get critiqued from one
other person or a team of professors
that are five people or but I mean I
also understand when you go to camera
clubs you might be in that situation
where a large group of people are
talking to you about your work okay but
you know we have to be a little like
practical about well and that brings up
a good point is you know be careful
about who you seek out feedback
from right okay your mom's always going
to love your work and so is your wife
and husband probably unless unless
they're critical which is great but not
overly critical right um so you know
it's good to seek out feedback from
people you
respect um people who have a lot of
experience at looking a lot at a lot of
images I mean I think that's why I can
bring to the table it's why I even put
together the idea of a critique class I
mean I'm no expert on critique I'm
subjective as well however I do have
that one asset one asset I have a asset
an asset of having had my eyeballs on a
lot of people's work over 15 years like
I've seen a lot of work so there's a
benefit to that right um so it's
important to seek out um work that or
people that you know are capable of
giving you good feedback and perhaps in
that group or Camera Club situation I
mean you all know there's always those
couple people where you just have to go
like la la la la la la la yeah you're
talking but I'm not listening because
they just don't maybe you just don't
jive with each other's work you know or
they just don't get your images or they
just don't like it because we all have
personal preferences as well right so or
they maybe they just don't know how to
give feedback in a constructive way
right so I have a a whole collection of
images that I want us to look at so I'm
going to skip through some of these
images um what are what's let's critique
this image what are some thoughts the
lines I mean I think the story is a
couple the first two things that came
out of people's mouth is the story
besides someone saying the lines and
then I like that you pointed out some of
the visual things of the arms crossed
tells a certain Story the ball several
people have talked about the waiting for
the for the you know owner to play I
mean it's not a new shiny bright green
tennis ball that thing's been through
some some fetch right I mean it's old
it's peeling it's dirty there's the
bright Sun there's the fresh green grass
there's the old ball and then I think
potentially an old dog because of the
white paws but that wouldn't necessarily
have to be this is my image so I know
it's an old dog I do want to make a
comment since this is my image is I
actually ended up going back in and
cloning that out because I found it
distracting too so if I were critiquing
this image um I think I would bring that
up because first of all three odd
numbers you know it creates this Rhythm
and pattern we're going to we're going
to follow that line it mimics this round
shape it's an a you know it's up tucked
into the corner it's bright it's white
and I don't think it adds anything to
the story so I actually went back in and
cloned it out and in reality I should
have just removed it from the scene as I
was shooting but I didn't see it and
then I cloned it out later because I
found it taking away from the story it
was what a lot of people said it was I
mean it's a dog that fetches a whole
bunch right you can tell he uses that
ball a lot um we're taking a break
because I'm like stop please right I can
only fetch for so long he's taken a
break too in the sun it's summer we're
having fun and he's kicking back and
relaxing and enjoying the sunshine while
we're taking a break so it was about
play and summer and fun and fetch I do
want to talk about too and we're going
to I'm going to go there in a second but
when you know when we talk about dip
ticks or trip ticks multiple images used
together or when we look at photographs
in a
series it's important to consider that
right when two images are shown as dip
ticks they're meant to be together and
play off each other so they kind of have
to be talked about they can be talked
about separately but ultimately they
need to be talked about together right
everybody knows what I mean about a dip
tick right two images shown together
purposely so go ahead th throw out some
thought
okay so contrast between the two images
and the color makes you think of one out
of many yes I'm getting a lot of head
nods on that yeah I think the colors
play off each other for sure there's a
lot of similar light Grays dark Grays
earth tones in both of them I think the
color is pretty
prominent okay so the texture is very
prominent for you the um water and wood
natural elements for
sure I mean the word contrast has come
up several times um that this one has a
lot of horizontal movement and this one
has a lot of vertical
movement much about flow was what the
comment was that they're both about flow
I don't know if there's much more to say
about this I mean I like what everybody
said about it you know I mean it was you
know it's about nature it was about that
idea of one and many I picked this one
um River Rock and placed it and took a
photograph of it because I thought it
was so kind of it looked like an egg it
was so perfect shaped and smooth and
beautiful and so I took it and placed it
on the wood down tree and took a picture
and then as I was going through my
images later they were both from the
same day and I liked the idea of both of
them together of the one that was chosen
out of the river and also for me it was
just a memory of the day and the place
and the time and notice also um the
quality of light just because we haven't
been talking about light so um that's
important to talk about in critiques as
well um the light feels warm okay so
when we talk about light and I I do talk
about this in the visual design course
we can talk about temperature Direction
quality hard or soft okay so it's
important to talk about those you can
tell the light's pretty warm here it
looks like it's a sunny day um it's
actually high contrast light here but
soft light here right because here it
has very hard shadows and hard specular
highlights and here there's no Shadow it
feels very soft so those are things we
can talk about as well and critique is
the quality of
light I wanted to show this one as an
example of um I think the choice between
color and black and white potentially
can tell slightly different stories um I
think this one says wedding a lot
more uh and the reason I actually chose
to make it black and white is even
though I think this can also say wedding
I also know it's a wedding so I have
that in my mind so whether that said
that to all of you I'm not sure but it's
mostly because I mean I took the picture
because of the expression of the dog
that looks miserable in this stupid
dress right no no offense no offense to
people who dress up their dogs but I
mean the dog looks miserable right I
just thought it so funny that this dog
was like looking at me sideways its
shoulders are humped it's just like are
you kidding me and I felt like youve
said you know in this picture it's very
much about the blue pretty dress and the
color and the red collar and I just
didn't want any of that distraction I
wanted it to be about the you know the
funny expression on the dog's on the
dog's face um so something to talk about
with black and white when we talked
about the formal aspects of the building
blocks of an image or line shape texture
and color keep in mind that when we
remove color line shape and texture
become much more prominent okay so uh I
do a whole Workshop called seeing in
black and white in Montana um and I mean
we talk about a lot of stuff but that's
one of the things we really focus on is
when we eliminate color uh we need to
really make sure that line texture shape
are very important right so you know
we've talked about what we see what we
feel what we think we've talked about
the subject and the content and the
visual aspects okay the form which also
include the technical choices okay we've
talked about is what we're seeing and
feeling communicating an idea okay but
as we've seen with some photographs and
I want to show you some examples is
sometimes
there's there's one of those elements
that's so outstanding it can't be
ignored right like emotion okay I mean
when I show you this next
image the emotion is the first thing
that hits you okay okay so some images
are just Laden with emotion or reaction
okay and that's important we have to go
with our gut when we give feedback and
when we do critiques you could not skip
over the feeling of this image and begin
to talk about line shape texture and
color I mean in a way it's like doing a
disservice to the image it would be
important to say wow it's very moving or
it's very sad or it makes me angry or
whatever okay um but it'd be really
important to say or to say wow you
created I mean you captured some really
intense emotion here okay emotion I
mean right I think that sometimes
there's an outstanding element of all
these things that we can talk about that
might hit you first and then just start
with that right start with that and then
move to the other things okay I think I
mean to me this emotion it's you know
Joy connection right and then you can
begin to talk about what else in the
scene is is causing that
right sometimes the technique hits you
over the head right we've all seen this
with over thtop HDR whether you like it
or not okay when something is massively
I love the HDR as a verb now when
something is massively
hdred um you can't not talk about that
you have to say wow the technique's
really prominent okay um the technique
of using the scratching here and the
soft
focus I think it's probably one of the
first things you see it's something that
I don't think you could ignore in a
critique is talking about the use of
texture here
okay David Hackney the British painter
who did these combination of um you know
snapshots basically pictures and put
them into collages okay again the
technique here can't be ignored it's
very prominent you can not have this
critique and not talk about you wouldn't
start talking about white balance
immediately right or Focus or lens
choice right you I mean and you'll see
this in some critiques the whole
critique you talk about the technique
and you don't get to anything else
because the some one element is just so
hits you over the head okay
with when we talk about technique as we
all know technique can add to the image
or it can get in the way and it's
important I think to talk about that if
you feel that a technique gets in the
way um you know again soft focused
images can work or not work this is my
image so I have my own opinion I think
in this situation the soft focus Works
where I and this is the same subject in
Ocean where I think in this situation
the soft focus doesn't work
it's both a soft focused shot of the
ocean okay that's just in my
opinion this one works this one not so
much so it'd be important to talk about
that and say
why here are some other techniques that
can get in the way right we've all seen
it and it's good to experiment with all
this stuff right but you know sometimes
it's hard to even talk about the subject
the form or the content when the
Photoshop filter is hitting you over the
head
right or the crazy Borders or the HDR or
whatever and that's where it'd be
important to not knock it down because
you don't like it like wow I hate over
the top HDR this is horrible but you'd
say you'd have to say to the
photographer or maybe you'd say the
photographer um wow the use of that
photoshop filter is really strong it's
actually the first thing I see when I
look at this image um the filter is
actually even obscuring the form or
content or subject for me so if you can
talk to the photograph for personally um
what was your reasoning for doing that
why why so heavy on the filter and maybe
they have a reason and they can tell you
right so again it's that intent but if
they're just like I don't know I liked
it then it' be like okay well it's kind
of getting in the way for me and this is
why
right sometimes the story is the thing
that is prominent right this is
Christian ban not Christian bansky
Edward p berinsky Canadian photographer
Who does these large scale images um
about our impact on the environment okay
so again probably wouldn't be talking
about the repetitive circles here first
but we'll be talking about the the
meaning and the
symbolism okay again story can be very
strong yeah this is that South African
photographer again Jurgen shodg Jurgen
so sometimes the symbol can be really
strong okay and it's important when
there's really strong symbols or I
should maybe I should say loaded symbols
loaded
symbolism um we can't ignore it right
but we also I think have to be very
aware when there is a loaded symbol of
what we bring to it in a critique right
obviously there's a lot of loaded
symbolism around this figure and there's
more loaded symbolism now than five
years ago and it could be different in
two years right so you know when someone
puts something in their image or has an
image that's loaded with symbolism again
it can't be ignored but that's where I
think you got to navigate carefully um
you know another loaded symbol that's
going to have very different meaning for
very different people in the room
right so my point is just when there's
heavily loaded symbolism it needs to be
talked about but you know we also have
to really think about what we're
bringing to it and what the
photographers intend
was when there's text in an image text
is very prominent okay when there's text
in an image signage text we read it
immediately we can't ignore it and it
can also very much change the content of
an image or the story of an image okay
so that always has to be addressed and
also to just know that any text included
in an image it's the first place that
we're going to look because we read
words okay so we have to assume when
there's text in an image that it's
really meant to communicate something
right imagine this image if you would
have seen just this or now you're seeing
it with the text
included his name's Jim Goldberg and he
did this whole series of images where he
took snapshots of people and then asked
them to write on the print so they wrote
what they wanted what they wanted their
caption to be okay so again if we just
saw this image we would have a
completely different critique than when
you see it in the context of how the
photographer presented it it also made a
difference that I explained to you that
the person in the photograph wrote The
caption okay so again when you get into
more conceptual images you know it's
important to to understand more of the
context if you
can what about beauty we can get sucked
in by Beauty right it's just I it's
almost hard to critique this image it's
just like wow um so just to keep in mind
that when something's really beautiful
it's very easy to be like it's so
beautiful I love
it and that's fine to say but then start
to talk about why why is it working so
much why I mean yes she's beautiful but
then you can talk about the light the
quality of light the composition the
lines the shapes the expression all
those things of why it's working so much
on the other side of this is when
something's not beautiful to us and I'm
not stating that this is not beautiful
but I think everybody can agree beauty
and this is more of like a
mundane everyday scene okay so you know
some images are going to be strikingly
beautiful other images are meant to and
I'm not saying this one in particular
but some images we've all seen them are
sort of meant to repulse right or aren't
about beauty but we still need to be
able to talk about those as well and
then you talk about the formal aspects
and the technical choices and the
content and the meaning this is Wolf
Gang tilman's German
photographer some images are meant to be
shocking right this is actually an
advertisement this is Mark zybert the
great commercial photographer so he
wants it to be shocking because there's
a message right it says last year 16
million gallons of oil were consumed to
make plastic water bottles so it was an
advertisement um so my point is as
though is um you know if you're going to
critique images and give feedback it's
really easy when an image is shocking or
ugly to be like you know just like when
we see art in a gallery I'm guessing
most of you don't because you're New
Yorkers so you're pretty awesome when it
comes to Art but you know when we see
art we don't understand it's really easy
to just be like I don't get it I don't
like it um or we can approach it and go
H what's going on
here okay so I said I would talk a
little a little bit about abstract
images so an abstract image is when the
form is often simplified or magnified or
the meaning or the subject is obscured
right like we maybe we don't know what
it is we don't know what it is we don't
know what the photographer is doing or
saying we don't understand the technique
any of those can be obscured or unclear
to us and it could be hard to talk about
abstract images because we're sort of
like I don't know um so when we talk
about abstract images if we don't know
what the subject is
and we don't know what the meaning is
well what are we left with the visual
okay so often with abstract images you
simply talk about the visual aspects of
the image because you might not get
anything else out of it you might be
like I don't know what it is I don't
know what you're trying to say but I can
at least tell you what I'm seeing line
shape texture color technical choices
okay so this is great photographer Harry
Callahan
we may or may not know what it
is we may or may not know what he's
trying to
communicate but what can we talk about
here I mean you would probably
immediately talk about the line you'd
probably talk about the lack of detail
in black or white you would talk about
it being grayscale right and then you
might talk about what you what it
reminds you of or what you think of it
right gesture yeah gesture right
balance okay so again with abstract
images if you you if you can't tell the
technique if you don't know what it is
um you just fall back on those formal
aspects and then perhaps you also get a
mood or a feeling from it and talk about
that or perhaps you don't at all and you
say that
okay so I'm just bringing this up
because I think a lot of people get
turned off by images abstract images
that they don't get um and it's good to
have the skill of talking about those as
well
zuda bar
again Aon
cisin so much you can still talk about
without having to know what it is or
what it means
right okay we talked about multiple
images when images are seen together we
need to talk about them as a collective
okay especially dip ticks and trip ticks
right they're put together for a purpose
I'm also using these as examples because
like in the last example with the River
Rocks
sometimes the subjects are very similar
to each other meaning you can almost
tell they're shot in the same location
and sometimes they're very disparate and
sometimes the desparate cryp um dip
ticks are kind of even more fun for the
viewer because then you start to try to
make connections between the images
there's a reason the photographer put
them together so what's the connection
okay so it's important in multiple
images to talk about that connection and
that can be visually as far as color
scale texture and it can be conceptu as
far as mood idea
okay okay I talked in the beginning
about context and intention are
important to know if we can we can't
always okay but this is an example if
you came to this image individually you
might be like what's going on
here it's confusing it's disturbing it's
funny whatever you think it is however
when I show you the
series okay maybe some more pieces get
filled in but then most importantly
would be the context that this is a
photographer who was a father of an
autistic child trying to convey what the
world feels like to his autistic child
okay so an example where the artist
statement the titles the understanding
of the series is really important to the
series okay so I'm also saying that you
know sometimes hold back judgment or or
try to get more information
if we can to understand the context a
little more
okay as I said earlier if something is
technically off it needs to be addressed
okay uh I took this wedding shot um her
face is out of focus I missed the focus
it's on her dress it's a
problem okay it needs to be addressed
her face is not in Focus her
expression's important I missed it okay
um what's off in this shot
technically white balance totally off
you can't you can't ignore it and you're
not hurting people's feelings you're
just being honest the white balance is
off okay it should be more like this
needs to be talked about right focus is
off in this one I me being the
photographer okay but I think it's a
little more accept I think it's okay in
this one that the focus isn't on his
eyes because it's a very shallow depth
of field it feels intentional and about
the connection between the man and the
dog right okay I think I've sort of been
saying this all along okay but um you
know just give reasoning and
explanation for where you're coming from
but I just want to follow up with a few
final
suggestions um always begin with
something positive
please and objective maybe you know
meaning maybe the first thing out of
your mouth isn't like oh I just this is
so confusing I don't even know what it
is maybe it's like oh well I see lots of
varying lines I see um this I see that
and I'm a little confused okay
um stay on point it's how many times
have you been in a critique where the
person rolls off on I mean I've been in
critiques in grad school where the next
thing I know we're talking about the
history of feminism and I'm like um can
we talk about my image right here what
are you talking about okay so it's one
thing to reference Picasso or feminism
or something but then bring it back to
the image to try to stay on point make
it about the image and not yourself
we've all been there too right where the
person waxs poetic for 20 minutes about
what they would have done and their own
images and their own experience and
their own everything okay so we need to
make it about the
image give suggestions for how to
improve in your own personal opinion how
to make it better or more communicative
and end on a positive note as
well so you know if we're helping
someone it really helps to begin with a
positive and end on a positive all right
everybody
Continue with YouTLDR
Analyze another video with Pro
Process a new video, search every timestamp, compare sources, and keep the result in your library.
More transcripts
Explore other videos transcribed with YouTLDR.
Meaning & Knowledge - Ernest Nagel (1966)
Philosophy Overdose · English
Frank Lestringant, « L’aventure et l’inventaire dans le récit de voyage de Léry »
CRLV · French
تاريخ التفكير المنطقي، مقاربة برهانية
الموسوعة الفلسفية · Arabic
Photographie et littérature, un nouvel élan
Filigranes Editions · French
I'm ditching tmux for herdr!
typecraft · English
أحاديث حول الواقع والأفكار
طارق القرني · Arabic
The Nothing
Philosophical Bachelor · English
This Simple App Makes $18K/Month
Starter Story · English
Large Language Models explained briefly
3Blue1Brown · English
الطمأنينة
طارق القرني · Arabic
Nihilismus: Die erschreckende Wahrheit über den Sinn des Lebens
Historian FRKN · German
What Happens When the AI Boom Runs Out of Money
Invest Like The Best · English