Reply To: friend of fauxtographer

[ebi]

If I’d of crit’ed my students the way we used to get crits I’d of got chairs thrown at me or worse! . In my experience if you trash people too much, especially without sufficient explanation or clarification, they simply switch off.

And it’s been my experience that the harsher the critique, the more the impact. My approach may not be ideal for most, but works for the few that have what it takes. I’m not really talking about a “cut-throat” industry, per se. This is not Wall Street. It’s a lot different. You have to be keenly aware of what people way and what they actually mean when they say it. The best critique you can hope to get, especially when showing your book, is “we’ve decided to go in a different direction”. Unless you want to pay a grand to have a few 30 minute sessions with leading art directors, creative directors and photo editors at Photo Plus. But the cost is very high for not much pay off. Plus the people coming through here are not anywhere near that level. They think they have good photos, but they have no idea what good is. They aren’t paying attention to the details and they aren’t really trying. They just think it’s neat that you can push a button and make money for it.

I’ll admit that I’ve probably been a little too hard on Maryah. It’s not like she’s trying to sell her work. But at the same time she came in here kind of gawking at her friend for bad photography when she has nothing better to show herself.