Randomness - Criticism

Criticism

The other day I was talking to a fellow photographer and I asked her if she'd seen a recent photo shoot that I'd done.  She said that she had and I asked her what she thought.  She said, "Can I be honest?"

Those are words that you never really want to hear.  When you create something, you want people to like it.  It's easy to sit back and listen to people say how wonderful you are and how much they like your work.  It's not nearly as easy to hear people criticize your work or tell you what they don't like about it.  But you know what?  Sometimes it's necessary to get a little criticism.

She went on to tell me that there was nothing wrong with the photos.  They looked great.  It's just that when you have a great location with an attractive person and good lighting, it's not that hard to get photos that look great.  She was expecting more from me.  Not from my camera, not from my lenses, not from the models, not from the location, but from me.  She said I played it too safe.

The more I thought about it, the more I agree with her.  Sure, your average person might not know where to start with a studio full of lighting equipment and a DSLR, so of course most people are going to be happy and impressed with the photos.  They're not something that just anyone can make.  But what about other photographers?  Once you move past the basics of lighting and posing and apertures and shutter speeds, what makes one photographer different from any other?  There is no one specific thing, but there is always something, and she was telling me that I didn't let my something shine through.

It would have been easy to say, "Thanks for your input," and then go on about my business thinking, "Since everyone else liked the photos, what does she know?"  But really, when someone who you consider a friend and trust as a colleague puts themselves on the line to give you some criticism, you'd better listen, because that's not an easy thing to do.  It turns out that, while I might not agree with her 100%, I still learned something from her criticism.  Actually, after letting it sink in, I learned a lot.

I learned that although it might be easy to make good photos, it's not that easy to make good photos that only you can make.  I learned that instead of making photos that appeal to a few more people, maybe I should try making photos that appeal to a few less people.  One final thing, and probably the most important thing that I learned was that this photographer, this friend decided to take a chance and let me know what she thinks because she believes in me and wants to see me succeed.  I couldn't have asked for a better compliment than that.