On Thu, 3 May 2001, tom wrote:
> Personally, I feel a critiqued gallery will only make for better
> submissions, but I think that means less people will post. I have a
> friend just getting into photography, and if she thought Shel's
> comments were indicative of what she might expect from submitting,
> she'd never post.
>From the responses posted to Shel's comments, I think it's safe to assume
that his comments are *not* indicative of what she might expect. Even if
an overwhelmingly negative and potentially rude (though still
instructive) comment is given, this only seems to motivate a *lot* more
people to comment on the image, often disagreeing with the original harsh
assessment or phrasing the suggestions in a more tactful manner. If you
don't agree with a negative assessment of your work, then ignore it. If
you feel that a negative remark is excessively harsh or personal, then
count it as a failing on the part of the commenter and don't take it
personally. I hope the overall experience of the comments is still a
positive one, or there's not much point in doing them.
As far as what the PUG itself is supposed to be, I can't answer that
question. I can only say that I left the guidelines for the PUG comments
deliberately vague, leaving it to the discretion of the commentators which
approach to take. To be honest, I have no desire to start telling people
what they can and cannot say about a photo, and I hope that they will find
an approach themselves that works well for them and the group. For those
who are interested, this is the relevant part of the e-mail that I send to
the volunteer commentators:
"As far as comments go, use your own judgment. You don't have to analyze
the photos in detail if you don't want to, but try to talk about what you
think of them: things that you like, things that you think could improve
the photo, or whatever comes to mind. The important thing is that you're
giving the photographer some sort of feedback as to what someone thinks of
their work. Remember, you're just stating your opinion. There is no
"right" and "wrong" when it comes to this, so don't feel like you're
passing a final judgment on the photo. You're merely saying what you, as
one person, like and don't like about it. If people disagree with you,
great! At least that might get some discussion going on the PDML; it's
not personal. :)"
The general idea behind having regular commentators is to ensure that each
photos gets *something* said about it each month, whether it's postive,
negative, or (hopefully) a constructive mix of the two. It seemed like a
lot of people were putting a lot of work into taking photos and creating a
gallery each month, and then we'd be lucky to get five comments from the
entire list about the gallery. At least this way there's more talk about
our photographs themselves. We've gotten so used to talking primarily
about equipment and technique that we never really had to discuss
photographs on the list on a regular basis before. I think it's only
natural that we're struggling now with how to go about doing this.
I do feel that Shel could have been more tactful in his comments without
having to change his basic points in any way. Perhaps this is an
experience he could at least keep in mind for next time, as it's possible
to provide constructive and detail-oriented criticism without being so
blunt about it. At the same time, his comments did provoke an outpouring
of positive reviews (and more constructive criticism) of the photo.
It's obvious that different people have different comfort levels when it
comes to criticism, and different expectations for their photos. What's
the general consensus? Should we go back to having no formal commenting
procedure and just comment individually on the photos we like? Should we
keep the commenting process the way it is now and trust the list to keep
things balanced? Or should we alter the commenting in any way? If so,
how?
chris
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