Photo Critique Topic... Good idea? Bad idea?

[petergrant]

The following is just an idea I’ve had for a while... wouldn’t mind know what all your thoughts are.

What?
A topic maintained by someone (easy enough, and can easily be changed to another user, I don’t mind doing this) where users can add photos to be critiqued by other members of the topic, allowing for us all to improve our photographic abilities.

Why?
The January Challenge and the discussions about the topics for the February Challenge topic made me think that there's a few folk out there who want to improve their photography through constructive critique - I like to learn, and be told when I've done something a bit badly, and I'm sure there are others like me on Pbase.

How?
My idea is simple; everyone that wants to join creates a folder/gallery, such as this;

http://www.pbase.com/petergrant/critique

With these photos being updated as often as you wish.

Your gallery is then added to the critique topic e.g.;

http://www.pbase.com/topics/petergrant/critique

This gives a central location for all those to go to find photos to critique. You then go on, and look at other peoples pictures, and give them your thoughts publicly (or privately, up to you I guess, but I like public comments, allows for ideas to bounce around).
The idea is to be self reciprocating, the more you help others, the more help you'll get in return, with the final idea being that to LEARN.

Potential problems
The potential problems that I see, are people that simply use it to get others to look at their pictures, without wanting real criticism, this isn’t really something that can be controlled. Another problem area could be there being lots of images, I’d like to see each person only putting up a few images at a time, and ones they REALLY want critique on, they shouldn’t be your best, just to show off.

What now?
For now, I am looking to just gauge views, and see what people think, it’s only an idea after all. What are peoples comments and suggestions….. If the consensus is positive, I’ll get it started…

Cheers,
Peter

[birsay]

Hi Peter,

This looks like a good idea, I'd certainly be up for it! I agree with you, the January Challenge really got some good objective CC going which was refreshing to see and indeed be the recipient of .

LOL, I've just seen you've got my Feb PAD in the topic already!!! I'll get a proper 'Critique' gallery up soon, hopefully this weekend, and we can take it from there.

Thanks for getting this started, hope it gathers some interest...

Doug

[lisamidi]

I'll join this weekend, promised!
Love to learn!
Lisa

[amoxtli]

I will join you Peter. I thought about this a while, and think that it can work nicely.
I would like to improve my PaD Gallery. Here is the link:

http://www.pbase.com/amoxtli/zuihitsu

Best Wishes,

Walter

[petergrant]

Hi

Good to see a few interested.

Walter, do you think its a good idea to have a large selections of photos? I was more thinking along the lines of a few specific photographs your interested in getting feedback on (ie a specific gallery).

Cheers,
Peter

[amoxtli]

Hi

Good to see a few interested.

Walter, do you think its a good idea to have a large selections of photos? I was more thinking along the lines of a few specific photographs your interested in getting feedback on (ie a specific gallery).

Cheers,
Peter

Good point Peter. Here's my Critique Gallery:

http://www.pbase.com/amoxtli/critique_gallery

I will add a few images later today.

Best Wishes,

Walter

[beady]

I think it's a good idea, I'm always keen to learn and improve so I'll join in.

My URL is http://www.pbase.com/beady/critique.

I've just put the one image in for now, I think for this to work reasonably we shouldn't overload it with too many images, especially at the beginning.

I'm not entirely sure how this 'topic' thing works though. I have activated the 'Add to Topic' option in my profile (never knew it was there). Am I right in thinking that I need to keep visiting this forum to get to see the other galleries in the same topic, and then add them to my topic? Or is it possible to see all galleries that have 'critique' in the title?

[petergrant]

Hi All,

Walter, your gallery has been added, I guess it will show once you've added some pictures to it.

Bernard, anyone that has had a gallery added to the topic, can have there work found here http://www.pbase.com/topics/petergrant/critique, which is simply speaking a page of gallery links, which currently only has yours and my galleries shown. As this is purely a link, any changes you make to your critique gallery, will automatically show. As to being added to a topic, its extremely simple, and I just paste the username/gallery name in to a list (ie, "beady/critique" for yourself, and "petergrant/critique" for me). My name appears in the topic URL as its something that I have created, not sure any way around this.

As to updating the forum, I guess its not necessary, but will really depend on how much the individual users check the topic for themselves. I don't think there is a way to see which topics your work is being shown in, so saving the URL somewhere, or adding a link in to your critique gallery, could be a good way to keep the link easy to get to.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Peter

[birsay]

Hi Peter/All,

My gallery is: http://www.pbase.com/birsay/critic I have a couple of shots up ready for CC

Doug

[lisamidi]

Hi all,
mine is
http://www.pbase.com/lisamidi/critique
I finally managed to create my first topic...
Cheers.
Lisa

[petergrant]

Lisa, Doug,

You've both been added the topic, which can be found here (http://www.pbase.com/topics/petergrant/critique), thanks for setting up your galleries!

Cheers,
Peter

[amoxtli]

This topic is coming along fine Peter. Thank you for taking the initiative. May I suggest that participants also include EXIF information and what type of software(s) they are using for processing. That may help to give tips.

[birsay]

This topic is coming along fine Peter. Thank you for taking the initiative. May I suggest that participants also include EXIF information and what type of software(s) they are using for processing. That may help to give tips.

Good idea Walter - maybe a couple of words on how much/what sort of post-processing was done as well...

[petergrant]

This topic is coming along fine Peter. Thank you for taking the initiative. May I suggest that participants also include EXIF information and what type of software(s) they are using for processing. That may help to give tips.

Many thanks Walter, I couldn't have really got it going without you guys though, so thanks for reading and joining in.

As for EXIF, I'd love to add it, but I can't find in the menu's where to set EXIF to on. Infact, I can't even find the menu on my roll of film..... lol that said, after I get orginised/used to the new camera experience, I'll start writing down information after I take a shot, so when I look back at it, I can get an idea of what I was trying to do at the time.

Cheers,
Peter

[imorozoff]

I'll join as well, but not for a while yet. Too much going on at the moment.