Self Critique

One of the most valuable skills we can gain as photographers is the ability to self critique our compositions in the field and our images when we get home.  Being able to set aside the emotional connections we may have with an image and be able to give an impartial self critique to assess the quality of an image will go a long way to improving your “success rate” with captures/keepers as well as elevate your final images when you are done in the digital darkroom.

There are no universal standards or rules for what a “good” image is.  It is art after all and good art is often in the eye of the beholder.  A lot of the criteria that you would use for a self critique should be created by you.  However, if you look at the history of art and visual media, there are certain “things” that are used in compositions that do make visuals more pleasing (think rule of thirds).    This post is less about self critique criteria and more about being able to look at your own images critically, devoid of emotional or financial attachment, and assess them based solely on the merit you see visible on the screen or in the print.

What I have found over the year, and other photogs agree with this loose distribution, is that roughly 10% of the images we take are “worthy” , meaning good enough to process/share with the world.  Of that 10%, perhaps 1-2% of the images are portfolio worthy.  To put real numbers to this, if you take 500 frames on a photo trip, if you are really good, 50 images might be good enough to share.  Of those 50 images, 1-2 images might be wall-hanging worthy.  These numbers represent someone who is fairly experienced and has an adequate level of standards in their self critique in order to share images that all are of a “certain standard”.

• They are technically correct. (Focus, shutter speed, etc)
• They are compositionally sound (subject, fore/mid/back ground, balance, etc)
• Aesthetically pleasing (color, pattern, shape, etc). A highly subjective critieria

Then, the 1-2% images that I mentioned above, the ones that might be worthy to hang on the wall, this is where it gets much more subjective. Trying to verbalize the qualities that images have in this category, I come up with this…

• Those that evoke an emotion in the viewer
• Those that tell a story
• Those that represent deep emotional connection of the artist

I think we’ve all seen photographers or perhaps you are one, who share a good majority of the images they take.  Often they are duplicitous, or not impactful or just don’t resonate well for some reason.  Their philosophy is to share a ton and some will appeal to different viewers. This is one strategy for sure and if this is you, good on you ya.  I’m not here to say what’s right or wrong.  However for those that want their images to fall within a certain level of quality, a fair bit of self critique is required.

When I first started developing my own critique muscles, I often erred on being too critical.  This resulted in very few images to see the light of day.  In hindsight, my criteria for what I was happy with and would share was always pointed at the 1-2% of the images, the rare ones, which meant that plenty of “good” images in the 10% range never were processed or shown.  As part of my learning journey over the years I gained more insight which allowed me to back off on my standards of self critique and include more “good” images in work that I was happy with and what I chose to share.  These “good” images don’t have to be the Mona Lisa or tell profound stories to fit within the 10%, they can be pretty pictures or ones that might tell a good story to someone, just not deeply resonant with me.

When on location we are wrapped up in all of the sensations and emotions of the setting; the sights, sounds, smells.  It can often be challenging to distance yourself from the emotional side of things to evaluate your composition in a critical way.  However you can do it, I urge you to step back and give your image an impartial evaluation before pressing the shutter button. Are my camera settings correct for what I’m doing?   Is it compositionally sound? (the answer to this is a long topic, not for this post) And, is it aesthetically pleasing (based solely on the visual information you are seeing through the viewfinder and not any sensory information you’re receiving on location)

Then when you get home, you can practice those same skills from the comfort of your comfy chair, hopefully without all of the sensory cues you received on location.  This is a final check to evaluate your image based upon your self critique standard.  It’s also usually at this point that the 1-2% images become much more evident as I see them on the big screen.

For those who want to grow as artists, learning to develop the skills needed for a healthy self critique is vitally important.  I have found over the years that developing the ability to do a non-emotional assessment of my images based solely on the visual information contained in the file has really helped me grow as a photographer and an artist.  I have learned to identify problem areas in the field and no longer spend time taking photos of things I’m pretty confident won’t work out.  Plus, it has helped me elevate my processing abilities as I try to extract as much of my intent with an image as possible.  And finally, it has helped me produce a higher standard body of work, one that I continue to be proud of.

If you would like to have some help in developing your own self critique muscles, please feel free to reach out and I’ll be happy to discuss.