Evaluating Your Work
Last post for a wee while, I'm afraid. Real-life is getting in the way of bloggie-life and the day-job looks like it will suck up most of my time for the forseeable future. So be good, all of you and in the meantime I'll leave you with these thoughts...
It would be easier to produce really good photographs if we could see what we are doing. But we can’t see them, not objectively anyway. The problem is that we can look at our photographs on the screen every day without ever managing to see them clearly. IMO, the main problem is that humans have evolved in such a way that they primarily notice novelty. Our danger or pleasure mechanisms are only stimulated if something stands out from the background dross – if we notice something different. If you look at the same thing over and over again (whether it be your own work, or the plethora of b+w fine art nudes available online today) then if your brain is seeing the same old stuff day-in-day-out, you won’t be able to appreciate how your own work is changing. You won’t recognise or appreciate the detail or nuances in a particular photograph, and you certainly won’t be able to evaluate your body of work as a whole and assess how it is coming along.
The trouble with being human is that the familiar rapidly becomes the background, which is why we love to buy new things of course. We buy a fancy new camera and we are excited by the fact that it is different, sharper, bigger, more powerful, cooler. We imagine that the quality of our photography will be transformed forever by this splendid new machine. And certainly the next few shoots will have an added lift. Our photos will look better to us and the quality of prints will have improved, as will the photos we look at on screen too, although our computer monitors have such low resolution that we won’t in fact, see any difference, despite the fact that we think we do. Yes indeed, as a result of this shiny new “thing” our art will seem more profound, we will feel that we are really getting somewhere and that our photography has leapt “to the next level.” But slowly and inexorably we stop noticing it. And then we long for another new "thing" to improve our work.
What we are, in fact, longing for is not a shiny new camera. What we are searching for is to be able to SEE something new and different in our body of work. We have a relentless appetite for “different” because we are wired that way, but instead of maxing out our credit cards on gadgets that we can’t afford and won’t make much difference anyway, rather we need to see our photographs differently. We need to learn how to step back and analyse our body of work as a whole, to evaluate the design, to see the Big Picture.
How do we do this? Well, I guess everyone has their own ideas. One trick that has been suggested is to go back to basics and analyse your images as if they were taken by a student and you had to teach him how to improve his technique and advise on his creative vision. Brooks Jensen has also suggested doing a small project based on a particular theme. There’s nothing like concentrating on a new and highly specific project (perhaps for the purpose of producing a series or a self-published book) to cause you to see your work in a more objective light and to really stimulate those creative juices.
Many photographers suggest that objectivity on one’s own work can be achieved by making high quality prints. No, looking at your images on screen is not sufficient. Rich has found that printing say, thirty of his best photographs and evaluating them for the purpose of an exhibition is a real eye-opener. Similarly trying to select his nine very best photographs and arranging them for an examination by the Royal Photographic Society was both a humbling and enlightening experience. He saw strengths and flaws that he hadn’t seen before. The process of imagining how an examiner would see his work really brought home which parts of his work were weak and which he needed to develop further, and as a result of this process he knew which direction his work should go in the future.
Many folks reading this may wonder why a photographer would wish to go to such trouble to see things they’d rather not see. But creating opportunities to see your own work freshly doesn’t just show up problems. It also takes you away from the relentless preoccupation with wanting “more” and suddenly returns you to the beauty of your own photography.
Images are of Ivory Flame
It would be easier to produce really good photographs if we could see what we are doing. But we can’t see them, not objectively anyway. The problem is that we can look at our photographs on the screen every day without ever managing to see them clearly. IMO, the main problem is that humans have evolved in such a way that they primarily notice novelty. Our danger or pleasure mechanisms are only stimulated if something stands out from the background dross – if we notice something different. If you look at the same thing over and over again (whether it be your own work, or the plethora of b+w fine art nudes available online today) then if your brain is seeing the same old stuff day-in-day-out, you won’t be able to appreciate how your own work is changing. You won’t recognise or appreciate the detail or nuances in a particular photograph, and you certainly won’t be able to evaluate your body of work as a whole and assess how it is coming along.
The trouble with being human is that the familiar rapidly becomes the background, which is why we love to buy new things of course. We buy a fancy new camera and we are excited by the fact that it is different, sharper, bigger, more powerful, cooler. We imagine that the quality of our photography will be transformed forever by this splendid new machine. And certainly the next few shoots will have an added lift. Our photos will look better to us and the quality of prints will have improved, as will the photos we look at on screen too, although our computer monitors have such low resolution that we won’t in fact, see any difference, despite the fact that we think we do. Yes indeed, as a result of this shiny new “thing” our art will seem more profound, we will feel that we are really getting somewhere and that our photography has leapt “to the next level.” But slowly and inexorably we stop noticing it. And then we long for another new "thing" to improve our work.
What we are, in fact, longing for is not a shiny new camera. What we are searching for is to be able to SEE something new and different in our body of work. We have a relentless appetite for “different” because we are wired that way, but instead of maxing out our credit cards on gadgets that we can’t afford and won’t make much difference anyway, rather we need to see our photographs differently. We need to learn how to step back and analyse our body of work as a whole, to evaluate the design, to see the Big Picture.
How do we do this? Well, I guess everyone has their own ideas. One trick that has been suggested is to go back to basics and analyse your images as if they were taken by a student and you had to teach him how to improve his technique and advise on his creative vision. Brooks Jensen has also suggested doing a small project based on a particular theme. There’s nothing like concentrating on a new and highly specific project (perhaps for the purpose of producing a series or a self-published book) to cause you to see your work in a more objective light and to really stimulate those creative juices.
Many photographers suggest that objectivity on one’s own work can be achieved by making high quality prints. No, looking at your images on screen is not sufficient. Rich has found that printing say, thirty of his best photographs and evaluating them for the purpose of an exhibition is a real eye-opener. Similarly trying to select his nine very best photographs and arranging them for an examination by the Royal Photographic Society was both a humbling and enlightening experience. He saw strengths and flaws that he hadn’t seen before. The process of imagining how an examiner would see his work really brought home which parts of his work were weak and which he needed to develop further, and as a result of this process he knew which direction his work should go in the future.
Many folks reading this may wonder why a photographer would wish to go to such trouble to see things they’d rather not see. But creating opportunities to see your own work freshly doesn’t just show up problems. It also takes you away from the relentless preoccupation with wanting “more” and suddenly returns you to the beauty of your own photography.
Images are of Ivory Flame
Labels: IvoryFlame, Philosophy
posted by Lin at 1:21 PM
6 Comments:
A great post, Lin. We get in trouble when we focus on novelty and lose sight of purity. Btw, that image of Ivory Flame is incredibly beautiful. Now that's purity.
I know you're busy, but I hope you won't be too far away from us!
I always feel photographers and least myself as my worst critic. I seldom seem happy with my work, and the ones I like others do not. Where as some I think are OK, others find them to be excellent.
It is art and subjective, that is what makes it all so much enjoyment when I pick up my camera.
Ivoryflame is such a lovely girl, I'm very impress by her work. I'm glad Rich had the chance to photograph her in all that loveliness. Good job Rich!
It can apply to a writer reading one thousand times his book... Focus is sometimes to avoid. Thanks for this wonderful article that talks to my inner and so critic artist...
" It frequently happens, moreover - and this is one of the charms of photography - that the operator himself discovers on examination, perhaps long afterwards, that he has depicted many things he had no notion of at the time."
Willam Henry Fox Talbot
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Joannah
http://2gbmemory.net
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