popularity vs quality
I’m sure everyone’s been there: you arrive home from a shoot, and do the memory card emptying routine, take a first look at your shots on the monitor. You’re flicking through, click click click cli… and you stop, because you arrive at a picture that steals your heart straight away. Okay, I’m being romantic about it, but you know what I mean. Sometimes you (and I really mean ‘I’ but assume we all have this experience as photographers) look at a shot and think, “Wow, I did that. It actually looks great!”. I think, possibly, that it might even be the anticipation of that reaction that keeps me shooting. I love the process of being out there with the camera but if I didn’t see any results I liked I think that would wear a little thin.
So, here you are with the shot you love, you process it however appropriate, and it’s ready to share with the world. Since flickr is my image portal, that’s where I start. Upload, title, a wee description, and it’s out there for all to see. Then – you probably know what’s coming – you get one or two half hearted acknowledgements. That person whose comments you aspire to attract remains mysteriously, worryingly quiet. A sliver of doubt creeps into your mind: “Maybe it isn’t as good as I thought. Maybe I’m missing some awful, glaring problem?” It grows a shadow and starts to take over: “Maybe… maybe it’s, it’s, oh no Рmaybe it’s Рreally boring!”
So, how do you decide if you’re right, or if you have really misjudged it and it’s actually a mediocre effort?
Do you ascribe varying importance to the sources of those responses – or lack of? It took me about 6 months to stop playing the flickr popularity game, trying to collect comments and views and get into the ‘explore pages’ (where the ‘most interesting’ pictures reside, as judged by a mysterious algorithm based on a combination of views, comments and favourites). When you figure out that usually it’s brightly coloured and iconic/simplistic images that look good in 100 pixel wide thumbnails that get you into those hallowed grounds, it starts to lose appeal. I then understood that was no real bearing on the quality of my pictures. Flickr, by its very nature, is a bombardment of thousands of pictures and there are inevitably qualities that make a certain type of shot stand out in that crowd.
I have a couple of contacts whose opinions I really value, and it would usually be because I think they are excellent photographers. The only thing that comes into play then is taste, and sometimes I might know that I have a good shot on my hands and it just isn’t going to appeal to someone in particular. As I gain more experience, and confidence, this is getting easier to realise/understand/deal with, and I think I can separate it from the times when it really isn’t as great an image as I had originally thought.
But what would happen if I had a contact who might not be a photographer, but could still be expected to give a worthwhile opinion, like a contact at a gallery (I’m stifling my laughter at the thought of that mind you, this is all completely hypothetical) or even just someone who buys a lot of pictures for any given reason? Would their opinion be any more valid or useful in judging your own work? Then you have to consider the basis of their evaluation, being more of a commercial one where they are looking to maybe appeal to the masses, or appeal to a certain niche of society. That’s where you have to decide whether it relates to quality or not.
I suppose in the process of typing this I’ve come to something of an anticlimax… in the realisation that in the end, you decide whose opinion matters, and if you decide the only opinion that matters is your own, you’ll probably have a much easier time of it…
“in the end, you decide whose opinion matters, and if you decide the only opinion that matters is your own, you’ll probably have a much easier time of it…”
Amen to that, jools!
: )
“in the end, you decide whose opinion matters, and if you decide the only opinion that matters is your own, you’ll probably have a much easier time of it…”
Amen to that, jools!
: )
Ah but I bet you’re watching for comments here now ;) Nah, I get you. I just came off the 24 hr flickr group discussion threads and all it seems to be about is people begging for their streams to be viewed. I don’t get that – never did with Myspace either. I guess I don’t do the popularity thing. I just like seeing my photos out there, whether anyone chooses to look or not. And having a linear progression of learning and improving.
Sorry – rambling… :)
Ah but I bet you’re watching for comments here now ;) Nah, I get you. I just came off the 24 hr flickr group discussion threads and all it seems to be about is people begging for their streams to be viewed. I don’t get that – never did with Myspace either. I guess I don’t do the popularity thing. I just like seeing my photos out there, whether anyone chooses to look or not. And having a linear progression of learning and improving.
Sorry – rambling… :)
Julie, I guess that it comes down to fulfillment. Are you looking for external, or internal. I am a recovering comment junkie! :-) When I first started blogging, I lived and died by the comment. Not that I wanted people to critique my work or tell me that it was good. It was just that I wanted some comments so that I could feel that people were viewing my photos.
Later, I switched to the style of blog that you see now, some pictures, some writing. I like to write, as I can see, you do to. I’m glad that you do because I am enjoying it. I only found the website by chance, as it showed in my dashboard as having links to my site (thank you!). I’ll be a daily visitor, for sure. I like what you have to say.
Anyway, enough of the rambling. If you find and image that steals your heart, show it! Don’t let anyone take away that feeling and don’t talk yourself out of it. There was some reason that you took that picture and that’s good enough!
Julie, I guess that it comes down to fulfillment. Are you looking for external, or internal. I am a recovering comment junkie! :-) When I first started blogging, I lived and died by the comment. Not that I wanted people to critique my work or tell me that it was good. It was just that I wanted some comments so that I could feel that people were viewing my photos.
Later, I switched to the style of blog that you see now, some pictures, some writing. I like to write, as I can see, you do to. I’m glad that you do because I am enjoying it. I only found the website by chance, as it showed in my dashboard as having links to my site (thank you!). I’ll be a daily visitor, for sure. I like what you have to say.
Anyway, enough of the rambling. If you find and image that steals your heart, show it! Don’t let anyone take away that feeling and don’t talk yourself out of it. There was some reason that you took that picture and that’s good enough!
Julie, let me add another Amen to your thoughtful conclusion;- ) (although that can still be a difficult road to walk, but over time, it gets easier)