The Beginner Photography Podcast

The Photo Critique Blueprint: Learn What Professional Photographers Look For

• Raymond Hatfield

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#473 In this episode of The Beginner Photography Podcast, we explore the invaluable skill of critiquing your own photos to elevate your art. By understanding what your images are trying to convey and asking targeted questions like "Where does my eye go?" and "How is the visual weight and composition?", you can discern the strengths and areas for improvement in your work. Drawing parallels with Jerry Seinfeld's method of refining jokes, I highlight how revisiting and refining initial ideas can lead to profound outcomes.

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Embrace Critique for Growth: Critiquing your work helps pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, accelerating your growth as a photographer.
  • Seek the Good Moments: Focusing on capturing compelling moments enhances your ability to tell powerful stories through your images.
  • Analyze Composition Thoughtfully: Assess where the eye is drawn in your photos and adjust the visual balance to improve overall impact.
  • Know Your Artistic Voice: Understanding what you love about photography guides your style and helps you communicate more effectively through your images.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

  • Practice Shooting in Manual Mode: Set aside 15 minutes daily to use your camera in manual mode. This will help you understand light, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings better. Aim to capture five varied photos during this practice session, like a portrait, a landscape, and a close-up to challenge your settings adjustment skills.
  • Critique Your Own Photos Using the Four Key Questions: After each photo session, pick out at least three photos and critique them based on, Is there a good moment here? Where does my eye go? How is the visual weight and composition? Is the subject clear? This method sharpens your photographic eye and helps quicken your learning curve by identifying common missteps and success patterns.
  • Watch a Video Walkthrough on Photo Critiquing: Visit https://beginnerphotopod.com/313 to view a break down photo critiquing in easy-to-follow steps. Focus on applying one new technique from the video during your next photo shoot session.
  • Create a Portfolio of Your Work: Select 10 of your best images from your critiques and compile them into a digital portfolio. This portfolio will serve as a practical reference for your progress and helps you visualize your improvements, strengths, and weaknesses.
  • Share Your Photos for External Feedback: Join photography groups online or engage friends and family to get their opinions on your work. Asking specific questions about your photos, such as "How does this composition make you feel?" or "What story do you think this photo tells?" can provide insightful feedback and fresh perspectives.


Resources:
Free Photo critique breakdown video - https://beginnerphotopod.com/313 

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Raymond Hatfield:

Welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and each week you'll learn tips and tricks from me and some of the world's best photographers on how you can use your camera to capture beautiful images. In today's rewind episode, you're gonna learn how to critique your own photos. But first, the Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by Cloud Spot. Sell your photos through prints, products, and of course digitals set up a storefront in minutes and start earning money. Faster than ever. Grab your free forever account today@deliverphotos.com and only upgrade when you are ready. Now being able to critique your own photos is a massive superpower and it takes time to develop honestly. So, often we are too close to our photos, that it's difficult to see it for what it is. We either know that we like it or we don't, but we're unsure exactly why. So today I'm gonna help you figure out just that because. Honestly, once you're more competent and efficient in critiquing your own work, you're gonna be able to more confidently know when you go out and shoot, that you're going to come home with images that you will love. So, famous comedian, Jerry Seinfeld has this book called, is this Anything? I think a, a comedian, like a photographer is essentially somebody who is creating something from, from nothing. Right. When a joke pops into Jerry Seinfeld's head, he knows that there's a chance that he finds it funny, but nobody else is is gonna get it. So how does he know if a joke is, is good or not? He asks the simple question, is this anything? Now the question is not, is this a good joke? Is this a bad joke? Hey, welcome back to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and today we are talking all about critiquing your images. Now, like a photograph or a painting or a piece of music, I think Jerry Seinfeld knows that, the first idea that pops into your head is, is the first draft. That's what it is. A first draft needs to be worked on before it's ready for like prime time, but it should only be worked on if there is an element to the premise or setup. That is interesting. So even Jerry Seinfeld, who I think we can all agree is one of the top comedians, with decades of experience, still has to critique his own work Now. That should tell you how important it is to critique your own work. But how do we do that? How do we critique our own work when we are so close to it? Well, in today's episode, I'm gonna share with you how to do just that, critique your own work and become a stronger photographer. So buckle in, but first, shout out to any, big Brother fans there, right there, right. Hashtag but first, but first I wanted to start off, this episode actually with a story that my 9-year-old son told me the other day, and I wanna share it with you. And, just so that you know, he told me this story and I had to fact check it just to make sure that it is true and, it is true. Luckily, even if it wasn't, I think that the point of the story would, would still stand. So, in World War ii, the Navy was losing a lot of planes, due to enemy fire, right? It's not 'cause they were just crying. It was due to enemy fire. And what does this have to do with photography? We'll, just stick with me, I promise you we're gonna get there. so the Navy is looking at all these planes, right? And the comeback just covered in damage and the navy's thinking. Well, how do, how do we save like more of these planes? Planes are very expensive. Human lives are very important. We want to keep as many as possible. So what they found after, again, looking at all these planes that came back covered in damage is that the majority of bullet holes in these planes from enemy fire, they were in very key parts of the airplane. They were on the wings. They were on the rear part of the airplane cabin. They were on the elevators, which those are the, uh, the flappy bits on the wings for anybody who doesn't have a 9-year-old who is just absolutely obsessed with aviation. So, Navy engineers looked at this problem and said, oh. Okay, these planes are coming back covered in bullets. We gotta make these parts of the plane even stronger. Makes perfect sense, right? Plane has damage. You make that part stronger so that it takes less damage. Well, they got to work and, guess what? That actually didn't solve the problem. In fact, just as many planes were still being shot down, so they had to go back to the drawing board. This is where one engineer stands up and says like, what? What's going on here? Like, we fixed all the places where planes were taking the most damage. What are we missing? That's when another engineer stood up and says, well, we fixed all the places where the planes that returned took damage. Meaning that when a plane comes back with a ton of bullet holes, what you didn't find was where you needed to, reinforce that part of the plane. What they discovered was actually where the plane could take damage and still return without being destroyed, and that's a win. You get a few bullet holes, but you return, that's a win. So he suggested that what they needed to do was actually to reinforce the opposite areas of the plane, because that's where the planes that did not return were taking the damage. So once they started reinforcing the engine housing, the central airplane body section in the nose, more planes started coming back. Now I share the story. Because I think often we think of critiquing something. We think to look at the negative side, right? So that we fix that thing. What's the thing that's, that's wrong? What's bad about this photo? If we fix that thing, then the photo's going to have to be inherently better. Right now there is truth to that, I think. But when we're starting out. It's hard to just focus on the things that are bad because, well, we don't really know exactly what is good. We just know if it's bad, we don't want to do that. But I think that if every photo of yours that you look at, the first question that you ask yourself is, what did I do wrong here? Well that's gonna do something to your mindset towards photography and how you capture photos, right? Because we all know that a photo starts before the shutter button is pressed. it's what it is that you see in the world, and I would much rather start and focus solely on things that work in an image. What do I love? Because I think that it's better to be different than. To be better because there's always somebody who is going to be technically better than you always, right? but just because you're not better doesn't mean that you should just stop, right? Does that mean that, I don't know. Pepsi should stop because Coke sells, three times as many, colas than Pepsi does. No, Pepsi is different than Coca-Cola. Does that mean that, burger King should give up? Oh, because McDonald's sells more burgers throughout the world. No, because they're two different restaurants. So if you reframe the critique to ask what is it that you love about an image, then you can start to develop your own personal style. Regardless of technical abilities, you can still find things that you love about your images and be happy about images, even when you're in the beginning stages. So when it comes to critiquing your images, I really think that it starts before you even take your photo, right? you take a photo to capture part of a story. That's what you're doing, right? So your image tells. The story. So knowing what it is that you want to say with your image before you actually take it is truly paramount to starting off critiquing your own images. And if you can't, if you don't know what it is that you're saying with an image, then how can you accurately know whether it's good or not? And knowing what it is that you want to say with your image. It doesn't have to be. something super poignant. It doesn't have to be anything that is going to, truly enlighten somebody and just like really change their outlook on life. It can be anything that you want, whether it's how much fun your dog has playing catch. That's a story how focused your child is on the mound playing baseball. Right. We don't need to see the home run. We don't need to see, all of the plays. If you're just telling one story and it's your son on the mound and they're focused, that is a story right there. Or maybe the story that you're trying to tell is just simply how beautiful the light is that is hitting the tree in your front yard. a photo is, is trying to say something, as I've said, but what it's saying, it doesn't matter how effectively you're able to say it is what matters, right? if we're trying to make a jingle for a restaurant, some 500 page epic novel isn't going to do the job, it's going to be bad, but, four or five words. Is going to be exactly what is needed. So we have to reframe how we are critiquing an image, right? What is it that you are trying to say? That's what matters. How effectively, I'm sorry, what you're trying to say doesn't matter. It's how effectively you're able to say it is what matters. Now that is where, again, knowing your self as a photographer, knowing how to use your camera properly also comes into play because if you know what it is that you wanna say, but you don't know how to capture it with your camera. From a technical standpoint, it's going to fall flat. So that is why, shooting a manual and continuing to practice, every single day, even if it's just for a few minutes and it's just around your home, that is what is going to give you the skills to become a better photographer. That's what's gonna give you the knowledge, like the working. Knowledge of photography that is going to help you progress so that you can start to tell better stories or more effective stories. So now that we have, figured out what it was that we wanted to say and we used our camera settings to properly capture the photo. That is when it is time to start critiquing your image. Now, here's something that I've said before and needs to be said again because oftentimes we forget, myself included. I will find myself comparing my images to somebody else's, but at the end of the day, photography is subjective. And what that means is that, you may love a photo. I may hate that photo. There are world famous photographers whose images I just, I don't understand. And there are, you know, my son, my 9-year-old son has taken photos that I've thought, wow, like this is an incredible image. So again, it's all subjective. It doesn't matter based on technicals. It doesn't matter on how many years you've been doing it. But that being said, there are some basic elements that still apply to just about every photo. And once you know what those are, then you can decide whether or not they need to be adhered to those rules or if you can bend the rules a bit so that, again, you can tell the best story possible. So the first question that we tend to ask about an image when we are looking to critique it is what is this good, right? Is this anything? Is this good? But I think that is this good is the wrong question to start with and it's the wrong question because it really doesn't mean anything, right? One question is simply not enough to form a full fledged opinion on a photo because like I said earlier in in Jerry Seinfeld's example, is this anything? Okay. That's the starting point for him, right? Is this anything? Then he knows. Okay, well maybe the premise is good. Maybe the idea is good, but this is the first draft, right? So is it good? The only answers are yes or no. Yes or no. Is this good? Yes. Is this good? No. Compared to what? What is good? What is good? As I said, I've seen professional photographers take photos that I don't like. My 9-year-old has taken photos that I have loved. So what are we comparing? Is this good to, it's a terrible question. So myself, when I critique images, I am asking myself four questions, and these four questions ensure that I collect not only the best images, but I can save time by not having to edit unnecessary images. And on top of that, it pushes me these four questions to be a stronger photographer by identifying my weak spots. So the first question that I ask myself when, I'm looking at an image is, is there a good moment here? This is my, is this anything? Right? I focus on the moment in a photo over everything else over, exposure over composition, even now, those are interesting, right? the exposure, the composition, those are important. But if there's no moment in a photo, I am going to pass. Now, for many others, maybe exposure is everything. Maybe composition is everything. Maybe color is everything to you, but for me I want to capture the best moments that I can, right? Those are the things that are here and are gone so fast, and that photography does such a great job of being able to freeze forever. So I focus on moment over everything else. So again, my first question is, is there, is this a good moment? The first time I lay eyes on my photo, I want to know if I captured a photo with the same feeling the same? Yeah, the same feeling, really. Right. The moment elicits a feeling, right? So I want to know that the photo I captured expresses that same feeling as I intended when I was shooting the image. A great moment I believe is worth its weight in gold to me. And I can look over many technical aspects of an image if the moment is great, I've saved many a photos that are, have a great moment. But it's underexposed, right? The image is, is too dark for what, I was trying to say. composition, maybe part of their head is cut off a little bit or right at the ankle or a joint or something and it just doesn't work from a technical standpoint, but that moment is so good that your eye locks on to exactly where I wanted it to go, where I wanted the viewer's eyes to go, right you, and therefore it works. So that's my first question. And if the answer is no. Well, then I pass on that photo. I don't care about what else is in that photo. I don't care how properly exposed the photo is or anything like that. I move on. So if it does pass my test of is there a good moment here? Then I go onto my second question, and my second question that I ask when critiquing my images is, well, where does my eye go? I can tell right away where my eye goes. So. If that happens, clearly the image has a clear subject, but if my eye, wanders trying to search for a subject, then that's not good. Right? This question could also be is, is the focus in the right place or was it missed? Because focus is also a very important aspect to, leading your viewer's eye to where you want it to go. I mean, how many times have you taken a photo and thought, oh, I nailed it. But then when looking at the photo on the computer, you look at it in almost a whole new set of eyes and either, wait, how did I mis focus? Like I swore that I got it dead on when I looked at it on the back of my, my three inch screen on my camera. Or how did I miss that, distracting park bench or pole, or a kid picking their nose like, wow. My eye goes right to these places, this bright red bench, this pole sticking out of my subject's head, or this kid right next to the person I was taking a photograph of, picking their nose. How did I miss that? And sometimes that happens. I mean, that's something that I still deal with, especially at weddings. There's just a lot of people and sometimes people are like half blinking or, just looking less than ideal, and I can find that distracting. Right? So that's why, that's my next question. Where does my eye go? If there aren't any distracting elements, or there aren't many distracting elements. I'll, I'll get to the, the qualifier for that here in a second. Then, that means that there's a clear subject to the photo and I'm very happy with it. Right moment is good. There's a clear subject. I know exactly where my eye goes. So then once that's done, then my next question is, all right. I guess this is less of a question, but I guess this leads us to, you know, into. how is the visual, weight and composition of this entire image, right? Does my subject, who I know has a good moment? Does my subject get lost in the image or do they stand out? Right? Is their presence in this image clear so that I know that this photo is actually about them? Or is there something else that I need to do? So rather than, focusing on the other elements of the frame, I want to know that my person is, is standing out. I want to know that, again, the park bench doesn't stand out, right? Because composition's job is to get the viewer to look where you want them to look. So if you are able to look at an image and think to yourself or say to yourself, I guess that it just doesn't. It's not as strong as you wish that it was, but the moment is good. Then the issue is your composition, and that is something that you can work on. So when I said earlier that these questions help me to collect my best images, save time by not having to edit unnecessary images and push me to be a stronger photographer, this is what I mean knowing that I can capture a good moment, but the compositions are garbage, right? That is going to help me to be a stronger photographer. Okay? I can focus less on tricks or tips or tools that I have rather to capture the best moment possible. And maybe I'll start looking at the world around me. First to find a good composition, right? Maybe I can find some leading lines or a frame to put somebody in, and then once I put them in that spot and have a good composition, now I can focus back on that moment. So again, I. We got. Is this a good moment? Yes. Okay. Well where does my eye go? Oh, right on my subject. Okay, that's good. Well what about the visual weight? Oh, okay. Well I could definitely work on the composition, to make this stronger. 'cause there are a few distracting elements, even though my eye does go to my subject or wanders a bit so I can make the composition stronger. Alright, so if I have all of those strong moment, I goes to my subject. Composition and visual weight are solid. The last question that I ask is, does this photo need to be helped with editing? Now, this typically tells me how close I got the cam, the photo right in camera, if I need help with something like the exposure, right, the contrast or the color. Well, I wanna know if I could have done something different in camera to get it closer to being done, because as a photographer, I want to spend as little time in front of a computer as possible and as much time behind the camera as I can. So if there's something that I can do in camera to fix what I would just do in editing, well, I would rather do that in camera so that I spend less time in front of the computer. Now the majority of my images do go into Lightroom. but mostly it is for simple color and like, I guess it, I'm still kind of working on this, I don't know phrase here, I guess, but it, it's some sort of simple color and tone signature, right? That I put on all of my photos. Now, that's not what I'm talking about here, right? I like a certain tone to my image. I like a certain color shift to my images, and that's something that I'm not gonna be doing in camera, right? That is what the edit is for me and that, so that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm trying to figure out what it is that I need to do to make corrections in editing due to the wrong choice of camera settings that I chose when I actually shot the photo. Now, those are the four main questions that I ask, and when you ask yourself those four questions, it is going to help you so much more when going through your photos than just like, is this good? Because again, compared to what are we comparing our photos to all of the photos that have ever been taken in the world, or are we comparing our photos to the photographer who you were yesterday compared to what? These questions ensure that we are inward focused on our images and not outward focused. When the question is, is this good? We're comparing it to other people's work. When we ask, is there a good moment here? Well, do you like that image or no? When we ask, where does our eye go? Is that where you wanted your viewer's eye to go? When we are looking for visual weight and composition, well then you can think back to that day or that moment when you took the photograph and think to yourself, how could I have made this stronger? What elements were around me that could have ensured that, my subject was the only thing that people were looking at? Not one of the things, the only thing. And then lastly, does this photo need help in editing? Editing is a part of photography. Photographers have been editing their photos literally since the late 18 hundreds. It has always been a part of photography. It often gets overlooked because now in the world of digital photography, it is, I don't wanna say overlooked, I mean like overlooked in the past. Because now with digital photography, many more people are actually editing their photos rather than just going to like a one hour photo lab and just calling it done. Right. So I know that this can be a lot of information to remember. It is, I get it. This is taking me more than a decade to really compile together myself so that I have a solid base to be able to judge the photos that I am looking at. So whether you are, driving and you can't write any of this down, here's what I did. I actually made a video walkthrough of myself critiquing my images. These are photos that came right outta camera. Lots of good, lots of bad. And I wanna share that with you along with a little PDF that you can print out and keep by your computer when you're actually critiquing your own photos. So if you want to check out the video walkthrough as well as grab that PDF for yourself, you can check it out now by heading over to the show notes of this episode by heading to beginner photo pod.com. Slash 3 1 3. That is beginner photo pod.com/ 3 1 3 for episode 313. That is this episode right here now. I'm gonna start to wrap this up here. I think learning how to critique your images is truly an invaluable skill to have as a photographer because when you know what it is that works and what does not work for the type of photography that you are trying to capture, then you can use that info to create more meaningful captures. As I said earlier, you may love color, you may love patterns, you may love composition, and if that is your main thing. Moment's not gonna matter to you. So for you, that first question doesn't really matter, right? We have to critique our photos based on who we are as a photographer, as. So is it even good? like even the question, is, is exposure good? Is the exposure good? That question is one that we can't even truly answer. Well, if, if the light meter in the camera is right in the middle, the exposure is it's perfect, right? that's the goal in photography, right? You get the light meter right in the center of the camera, right in the center of the light meter. That means that it's properly exposed. There's not too much light. There's not too little light. Well, what if you're photographing snow? Your light meter is gonna say, oh, here's the perfect exposure. But when you look at the photo, it's actually gonna be underexposed because your camera wants, doesn't want anything to be pure white. It wants it to be right in the middle, halfway between white and black. That is gray. It is gonna make your white snow look gray under exposed. But the light meter said that it was right. So what is proper exposure? Only you can answer that. What if you're photographing in the night sky? What if you take a portrait and you, you wanted the highlights to be blown out so that you could protect the shadow detail in your subject's face. Well, what's the story that you're trying to tell? Is it how beautiful the clouds are? Or is it, Hey, look at my subject's face. Look at how strong they are. Because if you're, if the story that you're trying to tell is, look how strong this subject is, look how noble my subject is. I don't care about the clouds at all. They can be blown out, whatever, but the exposure is gonna say, Ooh, don't like that. Even if a photo is technically terrible, technically the photographer, that's you. You're trying to capture something, right? You're trying to tell some sort of story and like I mentioned earlier, whether it's how much fun your dog has catching the ball, or your child in the zone on the baseball mound, or just how beautiful that light is when it hits that tree, in your backyard. It doesn't matter what you're trying to say. It matters how effectively you are saying it. So when you focus on the good things, you can then lean into that and focus more on those moving forward. And eventually all of the bad things will just kind of stop happening. I, I, I don't know how to say it any better than that. You will just stop doing the things that you don't like when you focus on the things that you love. That's what's gonna make you a better photographer. That's what's gonna make you a stronger photographer. That's gonna be what makes you a photographer who stands out because your images don't fit into everybody else's mold in a world going forward, where, I don't know, art is, looking different with AI and, just everything else, everything else that this world is going to have in place for it. Being technically the best is not going to be important at all. Being uniquely human is what's going to make your photos interesting, and the only way that you can be uniquely human is to be yourself. So you have to look at your images through your lens to critique them properly. So do not forget to download my image Critique walkthrough and PDF. Download over@beginnerphotopod.com slash 3 1 3. Again, that is beginner photo pod.com/ 3 1 3. It's the show notes for this episode. You'll see the link right there. Go ahead, sign up and watch it now. That is it for this week. Remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you'll be. Tomorrow, but only if you actually spend the time today to critique your images. Alright, that is it. Until next week, I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend. Start a conversation. Grow together. That is it for this week. Remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you'll be tomorrow. Talk soon. Thank you for listening to The Beginner Photography podcast. Keep shooting and we'll see you next week.