Originally posted by Britannica:
This thread has me thinking -- so I would call it a success, hope it has been for you as well.
What I've been thinking as I read it and the comments left on your images is that negative comments are only useful if there is something wrong with the image. It may seem obvious that if you didn't win there must have been something wrong with the image, but I don't think that is necessarily the case.
A negative comment is useful (and welcome) on an image with something wrong because it allows the photographer to not make that mistake again. However, just because there is nothing wrong with the image does not mean that there is anything right with the image either -- consistantly producing images of this quality puts the photographer in the dreaded middle zone of the 5's. The negative comments can't help the photographer remove mistakes that aren't there, so how can they help to push the photographer above the middle ground.
I have had some further thoughts following the epiphany I found interesting, so I'll share (caution, potential to ramble ahead :p ). The middle ground is a comfortable place when reached; after all, there are no more mistakes. But this can lead to a tendency to not want to do what could possible lead to more mistakes. I'm starting to think that it is this resistance to making more mistakes that keeps a person in the comfortable middle ground, just as much as not knowing what to do next. Call it being in a 'rut/funk/box' or anything else, but it does tend to trap a person into doing what they know is right instead of trying improve and risk making mistakes again and sinking lower.
The only think I can offer from this is to not concentrate only on removing the negatives, it can only take you so far (to where you are) -- instead may a suggest looking over the images you have that have made it a cut above the rest and try to find what is in them that made that makes them stand out.
Negativity can only show you what to not do -- it can't show you what to do instead.
My 2¢
David |
Very well said David! However, Negative (constructive) commentary can also say why a viewer doesn't like about a shot. It could be a feeling as well as a technical aspect. Without knowing what these feelings are, the photographer could end up in the rut without knowing why. That is part of the point of my little exercise!
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