David, while I normally agree with you, you do seem to be very binary; isn't there room for a middle ground?
It's very difficult to get good critique - here or anywhere else, except perhaps formal taught courses. 1x.com was one of the few places on the internet which attempted to instigate a sensible critique process but it's gone a bit weird.
In that absence I'll happily consider all opinions. You don't need to be an expert to make a useful observation. By way of example: I coach acrobats who are in some ways more skilled than me but lack the ability to analyse their errors. Critique and practise are different - but intimately related - skills.
I'm quite interested in the response of folk less skilled than me to my work - except when it is limited to 'great capture' - even if I then disregard what they have to say.
To say that the opinion of non-experts is useless seems to me to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
(sigh)... Right.................
I'm talking about opinions such as "I like it". They're useless. It tells you nothing. Kodiak didn't "like" the make up.. so what? It's useless as an opinion, as the shot was not taken for him. It's purely subjective. It would be better to ask the OP what he was trying to achieve with such make up, surely. Kodiak was saying it didn't flatter the model the way he thought it should. Well, so what? Was that the intention? He wasn't the client, and anyone who knows anything can see the make up is actually very well done... by someone who knows what they're doing, so maybe it was exactly as it was intended to be, for a good reason. No one thought to ask that question.... He just doesn't "like" it. So it's useless. Someone, somewhere, will always not like what you do. Big deal.
He actually missed the obvious, which wasn't the make up at all, but the styling. Everyone else even missed that and started banging on about catch lights.
I'll happily consider all opinions, sure.... but all I'm saying is maybe it's a good idea to check out the work of those giving you crit, so if you end up getting crit on your make up or lighting, and the person giving that crit has no studio work, or any evidence of ever having worked in such a way, with make up artists, studio lighting etc... maybe they're opinions don't carry as much weight as those that have done a great deal of that kind of work.
"To support the pictures you are doing, you need a makeup artist.
You have one already? …really!!"
Useless... assuming there was none, or of there was, they're bad at their job.
"On this childlike big eyes face, use your fingers to hide the eyes only and you will
discover another —more gentle— beautiful young woman… not a racoon! And I said
nothing about the hair pin yet."
Useless.... it's subjective..... You need to know what the make up was trying to achieve. Should make up always reveal a "gentle"... "beautiful young woman"? Really? That all women are for in photos? Can we not have aggression? Strength? Anything else other than beauty and "gentle" It's an opinion.. subjective, and therefore ueless to the OP as the OP clearly has a different idea of beauty, as we all have. Judging a photo on such subjective criteria is unhelpful. You judge imagery on it's strengths and weaknesses, NOT what you like an don't like... unless you're arrogant enough to think everyone's work should look like your own.
Why not mention the hair pin in the first post instead of being sarcastic? That's a styling issue... so the sarcastic post really should have said "To support the pictures you are doing, you need a stylist".
Unhelpful.
I wonder what he'd make of this make up...
Would he have a go at Nick Knight too? LOL
"A self declared non-professional photographer that has a studio is fine with me.
But a studio with a name?"
Derogatory.... still suggesting that now the OP is professional, it requires even more criticism, and a studio with a "name" should almost certainly have "pretty make up" and make the woman appear "beautiful" or "gentle"? It implies that because he's professional crit should now shift from helpful and supportive (which it never was) towards a more punitive, admonishing style.. because he should "know better". The OP being a professional is now seen as a threat... a threat to the crit giver's expertise and standing within the forum, so a more defensive stance is taken.
You see this a lot in here.
All useless crit. It's crit posted not to help the OP, but to enhance the standing of the person giving crit. It's "crit" given to show off the knowledge and expertise of the person giving crit. You'll find this living vicariously through crit giving a lot in amateur forums. People who aren't actually professionals, or don't really create any worthy work get notoriety and reputation by giving crit instead. It's point scoring to enhance the crit givers reputation, nothing more.
Some of you need to go to a professional portfolio review to understand what crit is. It's a dialogue between author and reviewer, not a list of arbitrary likes and dislikes given remotely without any attempt at understanding the context of the image.
Nothing there has actually told the OP how to improve anything at all.
To give balance.....
..... replying to crit with "I'm a professional and I've won a squillion awards" is just as useless, and comes across as retaliatory, and childish, and actually makes people doubt the legitimacy of such a claim. Being a professional means nothing. Winning awards could also potentially mean nothing: Awards from whom? Awards from a camera club or are you a Taylor Wessing award winner? Awards can be 10 a penny, useless things. Some people actually think the "awards" you get from 500px or 1x.com are actually worth anything... LOL.
The internet is actually a pretty poor place to give or receive crit. I rarely give it any more because when I do, others just barge in with subjective useless comments like the above, and the real dialogue just gets lost in the noise.
All I'm suggesting is... check out the work and CVs of those giving crit. You may be surprised by who's advice you're taking to heart and acting upon.
[edit]
I summarily ignore crit from anyone who has no work of their own to review or has work that clearly demonstrates they have little knowledge in the arena I work in. There are perhaps 10 people in this forum I'm willing accept crit from because they do work that's clearly aimed at the same audience as mine, and they have work up there that demonstrates they are at least knowledgeable in that arena and have given thought, or even studied the canon of that arena. None of them are professionals. One is a student. I learn from my students all the time. Learning is a reciprocal thing, not a one way transmission of knowledge from teacher to student.
My advice is to do the same. To do otherwise is to get advice on portraits from someone who shoots pictures of steam trains or street photography, or anything else unrelated... or worse still... shoot nothing at all. How is that a good idea unless you are only interested in seeing who likes your work or not? If that's all you want... just use Flickr or Facebook.
