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Fantastic, you might think, the more feedback the better! Well, true, except that a lot of people calling themselves “serious hobbyists” or “beginning professionals” simply seek out the most positive feedback they can get and live in a world totally isolated from how completely awful their work really is. Paul Indigo asks a question on his blog, Beyond the Obvious: do photo enthusiasts really want to learn? In his article, Paul wonders about the true intentions of people who demonstrate fundamental misunderstanding of the art concepts of photography and blame it on insufficient equipment or software. If these people want to learn, shouldn’t they be more open to feedback?

Ed Zawadzki takes it a step further and asks whether the art of critique has fallen by the wayside to be replaced by the blind exchange of accolades. You can certainly see that happening a lot on some of the larger and less organized sites, such as DeviantART and even a bit on Flickr, though the overall intent of Flickr is much more casual, which deserves to be mentioned.

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A site like DeviantART, with its many thousands of self-proclaimed artistic users, has the capacity to act as the medium for an incalculable volume of helpful critique. The stage, however, was not set for that mode of discourse; DeviantART’s commenting system is used, by and large, for the distribution of praise, and there is no technological nor social pressure in place to counter that. After browsing the site for only a short while, you are given the impression that offering criticism is inadvisable, if not downright prohibited.

DeviantART follows in the footsteps of many other social applications which, in want of remaining neutral, offer no specific guidelines or technical hurdles to shape the course of conversation. It turns out that when people are presented with an enormous and varied selection of content, they choose only the things they like to make comments about. That’s fair enough, and it’s wonderful to receive copious plaudits as a creator—you might say that commendations grease the cogs of creation—but artists in search of higher plateaus, those truly interested in growth, need more. They need critique.

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That’s where PhotoSIG steps in. With a unique system of critique scoring (not to mention using the word “critique” in the first place), PhotoSIG is able to encourage its members to think critically, even if the feedback is completely positive. The number of photographs a user can post in a single day is limited, but additional postings can be earned by submitting “conforming” critiques, which simply means that the critique meets a 15-word minimum and is among the first three to be posted.

Critique authors are asked to follow these guidelines (snagged from the critique posting page):

• If you’re here to give someone a thumbs-down critique because that person gave you a thumbs-down critique, then erase your critique and cool off for a bit.
• A critique is not a judgment. Make your critiques helpful by suggesting ways in which the photographer can improve his or her photo. Don’t simply state whether you like the photo or dislike it.
• An unflattering critique can be very constructive, but you must take care to be as polite and respectful as possible. Ask yourself how you would feel if someone made the same comment about one of your own photos.
• Critique the photo, not the photographer or the other critics.
• If this photo already has a lot of critiques, then think about whether you have anything new to add. Instead of writing a “me too” critique, why not critique something else?
• The three thumbs-down rating should be reserved for photos that are clearly offensive or repugnant, not those that are merely bad. You may be asked to justify or revisit a three thumbs-down rating.

Those are what I would call guidelines to shape the course of conversation. By abiding by those very simple rules, a writer is sure to offer something of some use to the photographer. If the critique qualifies as “conforming” (as described up above), the photographer may rate the critique as “helpful,” which earns the writer extra points that he or she may use to upload additional photos and so on. If, however, the photographer rates the critique as “unhelpful,” the writer will lose points.

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This very straightforward point-based system creates an environment of open and honest communication among PhotoSIG’s users, and it is among the best systems out there right now. I don’t know if a site such as PhotoSIG exists for art of a non-photographic nature, but if one does not… Someone should create it.

Although it’s been some time since I’ve been active on PhotoSIG, you can nevertheless read some of my critiques of others’ work. If you have photos up on PhotoSIG and you’d like me to swing by and write you a critique, leave a comment below; I’d be glad to. Likewise, if you want to critique some of mine, be my guest.

It’s always interesting to get others’ views on a piece. Even if you don’t always get the most well-written, fluent, useful, spectacular critiques in the world, you cannot hope to learn if you do not participate.

There are three major ways to grow as an artist; to strengthen your aesthetic senses and the quality of your work:

1. Emulate the work of artists you admire,
2. Experiment on your own, exploring the subject matter that interests you, and
3. Participate in critique

Emulation is very common, especially when getting started in art, and exploring subject matter of interest to you essentially describes doing art, so I’m sure you do that already. Critique, however, is where many artists are weakest.

Participating in critique means two things: evaluating the work of others and considering others’ evaluations of your work.

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For the most part, valuable critique will be given to you by people at or above your level of artistic accomplishment. The reason I say this is because people at different levels of accomplishment may express their ideas in different ways, and the closer someone is to your level of accomplishment, the better you’ll be able to understand where they’re coming from.

Participating in critique necessitates the use of some artistic vocabulary. Critique is only useful if it can be understood, so being able to express yourself in artistic terms is an important skill for growing your abilities. A great resource for expanding your artistic vocabulary is the very thorough ArtLex Art Dictionary. There you will learn that color, for example, can be described as “saturated, clear, cool, warm, deep, subdued, grayed, tawny, mat, glossy, monochrome, multicolored, particolored, variegated, or polychromed.” Knowing what these kinds of words mean will help you to be much more expressive in your critiques.

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In photography specifically, there is no better site than PhotoSIG for participating in critique. PhotoSIG’s critique system is built in such a way that it encourages thoughtful feedback and rewards posts that the artist finds helpful. On top of that, the community is very large so nearly all work receives decent exposure, and there is a whole lot of talent to tap into. I highly recommend signing up for a free account and critiquing some photographs there.

You can read some critiques that I’ve written on PhotoSIG by visiting my photo critiques page

Flickr has a nice comment system built into it, but because it isn’t geared toward formal critique, it isn’t quite as effective at generating thoughtful, useful feedback. The best places on Flickr to solicit critique are the various “groups” created by certain photography groups and geared toward artistic growth in particular. Naturally, the Strobist.com Flickr group is a good place to start, though Strobist deals chiefly with off-camera flash images, so don’t try to get feedback on your landscape work there.

There are a few Flickr groups specifically for sharing critique, among them Photography Critique, The Photo Critique Forum, and Critique. I didn’t spend much time reading through them, but they each have hundreds of members, and hey, it’s free.

Happy critiquing!