PBase

Hi PaDers,

Well 'm coming on 20 days in PaD, and so far good. I'm just curious, how do you folks like to work the feedback process. My philosphy to this point has been to just go though the meta-gallery the best I can and leave positive comments on photos I like. Also, when someone leaves a comment for me, I'll check in on their photo as well. I haven't been leaving comments on many peoples guestbooks, just because I figured I'd try to leave as many comments as possible on the photos. Now, I also wouldn't mind some criticism on my photos, as long as it's constructive (if you don't like something tell me why). However, this doesn't seem to be the way things work, which is fine, too, and I'm not about to rock the boat or anything.

Anyway, just wanted to make sure I was not offending anyone.

Mike

Some people are open to constructive criticism. You'll have to read that thread, here. I am. Aaaah. What trouble have I just brought on myself? I think many people check out galleries the way you do. But some people who were doing this before the meta gallery have collected a list of "favorites" and try to visit them regularly, regardless of the quality of the post for any given day. Though they don't always comment. I mostly use the favorites method, of which I am way behind, and then visit the meta gallery to see what good stuff other people are doing. I've added new people to my favorites from that process. I also recently have visited about 60 galleries of people who joined since Feb. 2004 to compile a more recent list of PADers. There are many excellent photographers among the new PADers.

One thing I try to do is to comment the person behind my daily post, and the person ahead of mine. Then it depends on the time I have alloted for the day. I too have favorites that I visit daily, but don't always comment on.

I don't have a problem with constuctive criticism. It makes all grow. There has been some suggestion of marking a photograph in some way so you know that the person is wanting constructive criticism.

Maybe by putting CRIT: in front of the photo name?

I try to leave positive comments unless a photo has a lot of comments already. Then I leave nothing. Some of my favorites are already deluged with comments before I get there. I will leave constructive criticism no matter what the photos says. I have learned on other sites that the criticism is only as good as the person giving it. People whose photographic insite I respect, I will ask for criticism about my photos. Criticism can be either positive or negative. No movie critic pans every movie with his criticism. If I am presonally asked, I will critique some photos. Otherwise, I prefer to praise the good things I see in photos. I learned in teaching digital photography, praising the good and ignoring the bad is the gentlest way of allowing someone to improve as they desire.

shecodes wrote:One thing I try to do is to comment the person behind my daily post, and the person ahead of mine. Then it depends on the time I have alloted for the day. I too have favorites that I visit daily, but don't always comment on.

I don't have a problem with constuctive criticism. It makes all grow. There has been some suggestion of marking a photograph in some way so you know that the person is wanting constructive criticism.

Maybe by putting CRIT: in front of the photo name?

I think that's a great idea, to comment always on the 2 PaD pictures surrounding your own! I didn't think of that. I would also like more constructive criticism and don't get many of those even though I have a little message on that in the copyright section. Oh well. Personally I leave some suggestions on improvement sporadically, but always have in mind that not everyone wants that.
/Anna

This is an interesting discussion. I think it depends heavily on how you approach the PAD process. For some, it's a daily attempt to produce something that is worthy of showing off to others because it is at least a decent quality picture with some artistic merit. For others, it's simply a daily photo chronicle of their life and they post photos that may not be of high quality but that simply say something about their activities that day. Of course I personally attempt to post the first type every day but many times end up posting the second kind

Did I have a point here? Oh yeah -- those who post for artistic merit are going to be open to critiques but those who post as a daily journal probably won't. If I post a poorly lit snapshot of my dog because it's his birthday that day, I don't want people telling me how the lighting is harsh, the background is cluttered, etc. because that's not why I posted the picture in the first place. So some way of letting people know if you are open to critiques is probably a good idea.

Man, I'm wordy this morning

todd