Critique

I have been busy over the past few months, so got behind on my blog posts.  Therefore, I’m catching up on them now. 

Back in June, I entered a photo contest sponsored by Magnum photography through Lens Culture.  Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer members. It “is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually.”  Lens culture is one of the most authoritative resources for contemporary photography, and look for exciting work from every continent with a diverse point of view.  

I knew I wouldn’t win the contest, because my work is not very “avant-garde”.  I only entered so I could get a critical review of my work.  I entered two set of photos, a general set and a set of just portraits. I felt the critique of the general set was very good and helpful. The reviewer analyzed the picture and comment on the qualities of the picture.  While the critique of the portraits I did not find as helpful. The reviewer stated they wanted descriptions of each photo and stated they didn’t tell a story. The reviewer I felt critique the model more than the actual composition of the photograph.   

These photos were submitted for the general set. 

  

I received the following positive comments on the  set.

"your shot of the leopard was amazing", 

"first two images here thoughts on the basin and sunrise reflections were very well taken and there was a sense of serene calm about these works and their location""the work showed great promise and an enthusiasm for photography"

These are the photos submitted for the portrait set.

I received the following comments on the portrait set.

"You clearly have a good sense of light and lighting as well as color.", 

 "Your models are clearly comfortable in front of the camera "

"As they stand these images would be great functioning and illustrations." (this is a great comment for cosplay)
"[the last picture] feels like a still from a play"

Overall, the critiques were helpful, and will help me improve my photography.