Rollo May (1909 – 1994) was an American existential psychologist and author. Among his books was The Courage to Create. In it, May lays out some ideas about art and creativity that have important implications for the creative person; photographers included.
One of the four steps of achieving true critique of a work of art is analysis and doing that analysis requires applying the elements and principles of art. In this episode, we look at what those elements and principles are so we can employ them in true critique of our photographs.
In the last couple of episodes of Camera Position, I talked about feedback on your work and the type of feedback you typically get contrasted against the type of feedback you want, which is true, genuine critique of your work.
In truth, critique of any sort is based entirely on critical thinking or the objective analysis and evaluation of something in order to form an evaluation of it. Critical thinking is at the base of how we come to know something… critical thinking is the engine of learning.
Feedback on our work usually comes in one of two forms: Reaction and Direction. Both are simple to do but don’t give us what we really want to help move our work forward. This second podcast of two parts looks at a third and much more useful type of feedback: Critique.
This form of feedback that is most helpful to us in understanding the impact of our photographs on viewers.
Feedback is something that photographers always want. Regardless of their level of interest or expertise, photographers always want to hear what other people think about their work. Most of the time, though, we often get feedback that doesn’t match what we are looking for. This first episode of a two-part set of podcasts looks at the two most common types of feedback; Reaction and Direction and starts us on a path toward the best kind of feedback: Critique.
