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Understanding Criticism - Essay

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Jerome Marot

Well-known member
The essay is fine and made me think about a general frustration I have with critics lately.

I believe the following point to be important: what kind of criticism do you want? What is exactly the information you are seeking from the critic?

Do you want to know if your technique is correct?
Do you want to know whether your images would sell?
Do you want to know if you managed to get your message through?
Etc...

Conversely, one should consider whom you ask the critic from. I found it very frustrating that most people who criticize pictures will actually tell you whether or not the picture at hand falls within their own borders of appreciation. For example, I found it quite frustrating to pay for a course and realize that the object of the teacher was to tell whether or not your pictures belonged to the particular kind of images he envisioned as a final product of his course.
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Jerome,

The next time you take a class I recommend asking the teacher about the nature of the critique session. In your instance it seems that all you learned is that your images didn't fit the expected format or content. I agree that it was a waste of time.
 

Mark Hampton

New member
Jerome,

The next time you take a class I recommend asking the teacher about the nature of the critique session. In your instance it seems that all you learned is that your images didn't fit the expected format or content. I agree that it was a waste of time.

Alain,

its a statement and not an essay.

cheers
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Alain,

its a statement and not an essay. Please re write and give examples and evidence for your thoughts, if you dont then they are just opinion.

Hope this helps you fine tune it.

cheers
Any essay does not have to be factual.

"An essay is a short piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man)." Wikipedia

Here, in Alain's writing, there are some facts but mostly personal reflections on his own experience. The personal part is the most interesting. Universalizing this is the step that is fraught with danger as the inferences are far to large to take with just limited anecdotal support.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The basis of this thread is an essay that's not published here, but is obviously arousing strong views and even insults, deserved or not. There are no photographs to debate. We can do no good by looking at the subject through argument about one essay as if it's the truth, a truth or the opposite. The essay is what it is! OPF didn't commission nor review it. For sure we're not asked to rewrite it. Enough is enough. This thread is closed!

The subject of criticism in art, however, definitely is worthy of discussion here!

Asher :)
 
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