Not long ago, I asked for feedback on my first wedding shoot. One of the photographers I’ve interacted with, Roger Overall, offered to give me a call via Skype to provide me direct feedback regarding my first effort in wedding photography. But I didn’t want his advice to be heard by just me. I wanted his feedback to be heard by others so that they could learn from my mistakes. I suggested that he record the conversation, and maybe edit it to be used in his various audio-blogging channels. He countered, suggesting a Google+ hangout where lots of people could either participate or listen in to the conversation.
Gulp. What have I gotten myself into?
It feels just a bit scary, but I’m committed to getting constructive feedback regarding my work. I really love the ‘likes’ on Facebook and Instagram. And the casual conversations with people IRL (in real life) have also been very encouraging. But I want someone to give me real feedback, including the bad, not just ‘atta boy!’ For example, looking at the picture above, I think it could be helped by a tighter crop, removing some of the head room. Are there other things I should have captured better?
I’m also committed to giving back to the photography community, and if others can learn and benefit from the feedback I get, I really want that to be shared. I’ve learned a lot about photography from experienced and talented photographers (like Roger) giving freely on their blogs and podcasts, etc. And if Roger is willing to give me some of his time and effort, I want to pay that forward.
So, here it is: Roger’s official announcement of the Google+ hangout critique. Feel free to join it if you can.
So much of this stuff is subjective, though, isn’t it? For example, if you crop the photo in this post, you lose some of the context of the photo: you can’t really tell that’s a stained glass window in the background. Thus you lose the context that this is a church, and by inference this is a wedding. If this photo is part of a set, the set provides that context, but on its own there’s little to tell the story if you crop this photo.
I’m interested in the results of your experiment. It will be interesting to see what kinds of feedback “real” photogs give to one another.
Skippy, agreed. Photography is 100% subjective, but because we’re humans with similar feelings and experiences, we can talk about things that ‘typically’ work. For example, a reasonably narrow depth of field helps to focus the eye on the subject. And that ‘typically’ works well for many people and many subjects. Certainly not all. Photography for me is a lot of ‘usually’ not so much ‘rules’. You can learn those ‘usually’s by experience, but it also helps to have people point them out with real world examples.
Regarding the above photo and the stained windows: that’s a great point. I was focusing too much on the women’s faces.