It often feels a little awkward asking others to critique your photos. You can get something too vague like “nice shot,” or you can get a negative opinion that makes you think you’ve done something wrong without telling you what exactly you need to change. Criticism should always be useful in photography, pointing out something specific you might want to improve, not something you can’t change. When you start learning photography, you just need to ask for comments so you can begin to notice how another person sees a picture so you can see what you intended and if it came out that way.
When posting your pictures for feedback, ask a question in regards to the photo like, “Does the subject come across clearly?” “Is the photo balanced?” “Does the photo feel right?” “Does the background work?” “Are the edges in your frame distracting?” By asking a specific question, the answers will be focused on something you want. Without asking something like this your feedback will usually be very open like, “Nice shot!” or “Not that good!” and won’t give you anything to take action on for your next photo. If you post more than one photo, keep them to be a set, like photos with window light, or close-up shots, or street photography.
This way feedback will address your composition of a particular subject. One of the common mistakes is getting comments on a photo before looking at it yourself. If you don’t go over your pictures first, you take what everyone says as being equally important. Look over the photos you want to get feedback on. Determine what you were thinking when you took the photo, what are the focal points, and what your eyes see first. Do you see if the photo is skewed, is the subject lost in the background, is the foreground distracting, what do you see that’s good and bad?
Once you are able to identify that you will get feedback easier when asking for comments because you are checking to see what the other person identifies that you do. It is important to separate taste from technique. Someone may not like your picture because they do not like street photography, and someone else may say your photo is good but you have a cluttered frame with people. There are many factors that go into a photo, but if someone just doesn’t like street photography it is not very useful. You will get discouraged easily if you do not know if someone’s comment means that your photo doesn’t turn out right or someone just doesn’t like that type of photo.
If someone says, “this picture is no good” try to find if it is about their composition, lighting, timing, focus, or something visual. “I just do not like this kind of image” may be honest, but it does not tell you how to improve. Comments should focus on the picture itself not the photographer’s tastes. You also want to set aside some time when posting your photos for feedback so you have a better understanding of what questions to ask. A simple fifteen-minute review habit can make feedback far more useful. Spend the first five minutes selecting two images from the same short session, one that feels stronger and one that feels weaker.
Use the next five minutes writing one sentence about what each image was trying to do. Use the final five minutes comparing them and deciding what specific question to ask when you share them. This will improve your photography because you will be learning to ask the right questions instead of just asking for your opinion and you will get a better response. Photography skills will improve faster when comments become more involved in your learning, and are not just another thing you worry about.
Something as simple as “your edges in your frame are distracting” can make you look at that for your next shoot, or if “flat light is not helping your shot” will make you look for another light source or another subject. Comments should inspire you to go shoot again because you have something to think about rather than making you feel bad about your picture. When you get to this point, you will see others as more tools to help you get your shots right instead of just another judgment on your work.
