The Importance of Critiquing the Work of Others

I'm pretty sure all of us are interested in improving our skills, whether they are photography skills or modeling skills. That's one reason why you come here, to the PGS blog: You're hoping I might accidentally write something that will help you improve. (You might also come for the pretty girl pics. Either way, it's all good.) And it's also why we visit photo forums, read other blogs, participate in workshops, read books and magazines that are on-topic to these interests, whatever.

Many of us who post images on forums, or show others our work, do so because we want feedback. Some of us share our work cuz we want pats on the back. Thoughtful feedback can be a valuable learning tool. Pats on the back feel good, but don't do much in terms of helping us grow our skills.

A lof of folks appreciate the constructive criticism their work receives. But what about giving critiques and feedback?

It's easy to give a pat on the back. It's easy to not bother commenting. What's a little more difficult is giving constructive feedback, whether you love the image or not. In other words, taking the time to detail, at least briefly, what you like or don't like about an image.

Let's get back to developing your skills. One of the skills you probably want to hone is your eye. You know, your critical eye, your eye for detail, your creative eye, all those eyes. Why? Because it's your eye, actually all those eyes I just mentioned, that will not only help you snap better pics but also help you edit your photos so that you choose the images that best reflect your work.

How do you develop your critical, detail-oriented, and creative eye? There's many ways. One of them, one big one, is by looking at the work of others and understanding what works and what doesn't work in those images. Yep, you guessed it, when you critique the work of others you're not only helping them, but you're actually helping yourself become a better shooter and editor. While critiquing the work of others helps them, more importantly, it helps you... maybe more than anything else in terms of developing your eye!

So next time you're gonna give an "attaboy" or an "attagirl" on some photo forum, take the time to say something that says WHY you like the image, not simply that you like it. When you do so, you're helping yourself become a better photographer or model while making someone else feel good and helping reinforce in them what works.

And when you're criticisms aren't so positive? Well, the same results occur when you provide constructive criticism: You develop and hone your own eye while helping others do the same.

Okay. That's it. I almost said, "Namaste" at the end of this but that would be so gay for me to do.

The pretty girl at the top is Katarina, flexing her stuff, from a few years ago.