Before & After

I joined an online critique forum on Facebook to get comments on images from other photographers.  One of the challenges with any pursuit, whether it's photography, painting, being a lawyer, or whatever is to always find avenues to find out honestly how you can do better / improve.

Photographers have many options to get online feedback and post their images.  We have FB, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr just to name a few.  My experience is that whenever you post something online you may or may not get comments or feedback....even if you ask for it.  And almost all the time the feedback is something like: "great photo", "excellent lighting", "amazing", etc.  What is often missing is, "Wow Steve, that image really is dark, what gives..", or "how about if you crop the image down to put focus on your subject".  That is helpful, but I find that most people don't provide constructive comments online.

Well so far the local FB page that is a critique forum appears to be doing this.

I posted this image for comment.  This was a model shot done at the Spark Art Photo owned by Dave Fulton in Indianapolis during a model shoot / party.  The setup was pretty standard - black background, large softbox camera right, reflector camera left, manual mode.  This shot was taken about 6 months ago.  Model compliment of LModelz

Before - model from LModelz

I thought it pretty good, so posted it for comment on Flickr, etc.  Got lots of really positive feedback and comments.  However, I also posted it on the photographer critic group and got the following comments:

• My model's face is too cool
• There's lint on you model's shirt
• The eyes are way too blue (note the model had colored contacts)
• The image is too dark

There we go.  Solid feedback, and when I looked at the original I thought...you know my model's face is too cool, man, I didn't even see the lint, and yes too dark.  So I made a few adjustments in the image and here it is.

After - Model from LModelz

Honestly, there may not be much difference (I would suggest you view the image at full size since the small blog thumbnail doesn't provide full effect), but there are subtle changes that a photographer will pick out.  This is the type of feedback that all photographers need.  How can we be better.  Don't shy away from it, be bold and ask for constructive feedback.  I know I will.