Wisdom of the crowd

One of the hardest things to do as a photography starting out is judging the quality of your own photos.

There are a number of ways to gather opinion, However they all suffer from the same issue that while people are quite happy to praise a photo, they are far less likely to give you negative criticism. Even if they do, they will rarely give you any useful ways to improve it.

I have always been a fan of 500px since it is one of the few ways to rate my pictures. However it suffers from the same problem. While you can judge by the number of positive likes and loves how favorable received your image is, it will not tell you the opposite i.e how disliked it is.

Up to recently I have been quite good at picking out images for 500px and got some good scores. This recently however came to a shuddering halt when I put this image on.

Now I like this picture. It has an unusual angle, tells a good story, and rather than being a pretty image, I think has a certain gravitas missing from a lot of my work.

So how did 500px rate it?

It got a total of zero, nil, null point likes, loves or even views.

So I am left with the question. Why?

There are a myriad of possible reasons but some that stand out are:-

1. It did not get seen. 

One issue with 500px is that with so many images being presented the photo needs a good hook to drag people in. Not only that but the preview shot on the main page,  only shows a small part of the center image. If that small square does not stand out, then this will cause the photo to be skipped over.

Also upload timing is critical. If it is placed when the majority of the viewers are not around, it will be rapidly relegated to the pit of other failed photos. For example, I only tend to look at the 1st 10 pages of the recent photo page, I probably miss thousands of great photos for that very reason

2. It is not a 500px type photo.

 It is quite easy to recognize a photo that will do well on 500px. They tend to be bright, glossy, and vibrant. Black and white images that do well again they are the ones with strong blacks and whites.

This image is not typical of one of those.  If I was to describe it, I would say it was gritty. Not that gritty photos are not liked, but they are less likely to stand out from the crowd.,

3. It is not very good. 

However much we hate to admit it, this is always a possibility.  Maybe its my judgement that is at fault. In some ways this would be the most worrying, which is why I cling to reason 1 or 2.

The problem is how do I know which is the reason (or is it a combination of all 3). This is why negative critic is so important. To become better photographers we must learn to accept the good with the bad, however painful the bad is.Websites like 500px just don't offer this sort of feedback, and we suffer from it(I can see there could be good legal reason why such a service is not offered. I mean no one has ever been sued for giving out compliments)

There is also the opposite issue of accepting the wisdom of the crowds. If 100 people say they like your photo, and one doesn't, does that make your photo good? If the one who dislikes it is a photo judge, they may have better reason to not like your image than the 100 who do. It maybe those faults will become more apparent with time.

So how do we obtain negative criticism?

Friends and family are not likely to be a great source of help here. However one of the best ways is to put it into competition. Judges rarely hold back, and while many judges have learnt that if they want to be asked back again, not to go totally negative, they can often not resist it.

Often you get what I call, the Judge sandwich, where they start of by saying something positive, hit you with criticism then finish off with some platitude. Worse is when the mark they give does not match their comments.

I must admit for a long time I hated competitions due to the negative comments, but looking back I realise they had an important role in improving my pictures. At the present we are are in the society off season and I am surprised by the how much I am missing the lack of critic, good and bad,

Another way to get valid feedback is to form contacts with other photographers and ask for honest opinions.

Sometimes we have to accept that we have a photo that just won't fly. it does not necessarily mean its bad, just that it's time has not come. However if in doing so you learn something then you can gain something from it despite your disappointment

To use the quotation from Moonfleet "As in life, so in a game of hazard, skill will make something of the worst of throws"

Come over here if you think your good enough...

There comes a time in every budding photographers life when they wonder whether the photo's they are taking are actually any good.

Unfortunately we are generally not very good at assessing our own work. Either we are too modest and think our work should never be shown outside the confines of our own home, or (and probably worse) we have an inflated opinion of our abilities and force our nearest and dearest to invent more imaginative platitudes, whenever forced to sit through our collection of electricity pylons from unusual angles.

However without fair judgement I challenge anyone to improve their photography.

So how do we achieve this. Of course you could just grab strangers in from the street, but apart from the likelihood of the police getting involved, how do you know whether their opinion is both balanced and worthwhile? The same goes for friends and relatives. While they maybe willing to express an opinion(sometimes too willing), they may struggle to tell you why they like a photo or be critical enough to correct faults.

One option is to put your photos on photo sharing sites suck a flickr . Unfortunately while a good way to share photo's, it is not really set up for criticism. You may get some comments, but not in the quantity required to make a meaningful evaluation.

A better option is 500px. Not only does the site allow other photographers to comment, like or love your photos(and in doing so ranking your pictures) but it is a great place to see what other photographers are doing and get ideas to try

You can see my 500px page here  under the moniker hammarbytp. There is something gratifying about watching other photographers decide that you work is not a pile of foetid dingo kidneys and could in fact have some promise.

However as good as the site is, it is limited by the amount of feedback it provides. Yes it will tell you which picture may not be total turkeys, but it will not tell you how to improve it  or what was good/bad about it.

For that you really need to go to the next stage and join a photographic society. It took me a long time and a lot of pontificating before my wife pushed me out the door to one. Finally I joined the Melbourne Photographic society and I must admit I have benefited greatly from the advice I have been given and the ideas and criticism I have gained from other members.

However to truly benefit from such organisation you must at some point put your photo's into competition.

This is not a step to be taken lightly and it is at this point that you realize that underneath the friendly exterior of a society, there is a deep level competition that a new part-time photographer may not be ready for.

I made the mistake of putting my 1st photos into the mix when choosing photo's for an external competition.

I agonized for days about which photos to show. I even  dragged my family into discussions. However on the day the photos were given short shrift and did not even get on the 2nd consideration pile.

In hindsight I realise that because this was a club external competition, I was putting my photos against the best photos of the society that year, so I was really out of my league. Saying that however, it did not stop me feeling hurt on how quickly they were dismissed. Did they not realise that these photos were my children, each lovingly raised? How dare they just cast them out without a backward glance!!

In fact the pain was so bad I almost did not go back again, but in the cold light of day I realized they were right. The photos were OK, but not to the standard required for the society's to rest it's reputation on. This was a necessary step in becoming a better photographer. Indeed my next entries for an internal competition were better received, although again did not get to the top table. Close, but encouraging.

The lessons here is that however good we think we are, we all need criticism if we wish to make ourselves better photographers. However we must be prepared for the disappointments that the criticism will inevitably bring.

I also learned another lesson. For the 1st competition entry I used my family as my judges (wisdom of crowds etc). But I wasn't happy with their choices.

The 2nd time I chose my own. Now I am not saying that things would of been different if I had been brave enough to choose my own photos in the first place. But sometimes it is better to fall by your own sword than to rely on others.

These are my first competition photos

and my second try

 Strangely this one got 16 and the other 15.....

But I prefer this one. Judges eh. Can't live with them etc....