30 Critiques and self critiquing your photographs

[myotis]

Blake Edwards is running 30 days of picture critiques on his Youtube channel, based on pictures from members of his "f64 Elite" mentoring "club"

As well as the "club" (I'm not sure what to call it) he has long produced Photoshop tutorials as well as producing Photoshop panels to support his teaching. Although, he started out as a painter (studied Fine Arts: sculpture and printmaking) he became rather notorious for his awful HDR photography work (which he seems to now look back on with shame).

The critiques being posted are normally only available to members, and he has produced a PDF and some videos to help people "self critique" their photographs. You need to sign up to hs mailing list to get the download.

Although, I'm not exactly a fan of his photographs, he is great resource for learning Photoshop, and he has some interesting things say about creative and expressive photography.

The Youtube channel is here:

f64 Academy

• It is our goal to bring you the finest Photoshop and Photography education. As the aperture (f.64) implies, we deliver tack sharp, clear, and concise education with a transparent mindset free of agendas and secrets. •As an Academy, we distinguish ourselves as scholars, called to a higher...

www.youtube.com

and the link to the PDF and videos is under the introductory video

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBDMbscqA3o



It's safe to say that whatever he has to say will get a mixed response on here, but might be worth having a look.

 

[myotis]

Having now downloaded the self critique guide and watched the videos (about an hour in total) I can give some feedback to this part of the 30 day exercise

The PDF (and the first video) takes you through Blakes suggested process in deciding what an image should look like, based on his interaction with subject and what he wants the viewer to react with the photograph. This is followed by approaches to assess how successful he has been in achieving what he wanted from the final print. This isn’t technical and discusses things like empathy and emotion and this can be reflected in the picture.

In two of the videos he looks at two of his older images and critiques them, along with showing how he now thinks they could be improved. He makes these improvements using Photoshop, (and one of his panels) but what he does and why he does it, would apply to any software.

The download also includes a free photoshop action that when run show the dominant tones and colours in a picture. These are used to help assess where the viewer's eye might be led wihn the picture, but you can probably do this without needing such a tool.

The last video discusses the care needed if you decide to use his approach of self critique, to criticising the photographs of others.

There is a tiny amount of promoting membership of his f64 academy, and he uses one of his paid for panels (but doesn’t promote it) for the edits he demonstrates.

I think it was a useful read/watch, especially if you struggle to work out how you should process an image, Not the technical aspects of "how" you do things, but more about "why" you might want to do things. Even, if Blake can be a little intense at times, and it's clearly focused on making landscape prints to be viewed as works of art.

A lot of what he says many people will already do, but it's useful to see it presented in a structured approach.