Everyone An Expert?

Do you complain about the lyics in the latest Taylor Swift song?

How about the work of Bob Dylan or Frank Sinatra ?

Do you think Rembrandt got his painting right? How about Picasso?

Did Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev meet your expectations?

Unless you’re very different from most people you’re going to say well of course their art was wonderful, inspirational maybe even perfect.

So why is when anybody posts a photo on FaceBook the photography police or the FB experts desend upon the hapless snapper with no end of unhelpful, unsolicited and inane comments? (It’s out of focus. It’s to far away. I don’t get it. Why did you shoot this?)

I’ve started to realize that photography seems to be the only artform where everyone thinks it’s okay to dump on anyone else for any reason whatsoever especially if it’s on social media.

I think a lot, if not all, of this unsolicited nonsense started in camera clubs and especially camera clubs which offer compeitions or “photo criticism” sessions.

A lot of camera clubs have a cabal of “experts” who pass judgement on the images and worthiness of other photographers. Can you image being the beginner photographer offering your heartfelt images to this inquisition? And as a teacher who has taught at a lot of clubs I see this crap happening time and time again. It’s distructive and unhelpful and pretty ugly.

So how do we build better photographers?

Photography is an artform of course but before anything else there’s the craft of knowing your equipment no matter how simple. Then it’s helpful if you understand some of the basics of composition and exposure but it’s not essential (see Lomography for examples).

So you do need to know the tools of your craft and then there’s the artform itself which can maniftest itself in many many ways when it comes to photography.

If you’re new and not sure of whether or not your images are “good enough” let me reassure you right now, sight unseen, that they are. And they will get better the more you study and the more you shoot.

Having your images “evaluated” by someone else only tells you how they would have shot your images if they got up off their easy chair and actually shot some film or digital images. That’s it. There is nothing more they can offer you because you are the artist and your work is uniquely yours.

So get out there and get shooting 🙂