Photographers are usually not very open to criticism and negative feedback concerning their photographs, and this is evidently seen when they deliberately defend their photographs, countering any comments with whatever reasons and justifications they can come up with. Now, lets not go too far into the entire world of photography, lets just narrow the scope down to street photography alone, for simplicity sake. I often hear many excuses given by photographers, some genuinely honest, some were just blatant lies to cover-up their flaws and mistakes. To be fair, there really is no right and wrong, but when challenged, anyone can suddenly put up an invisible force field surrounding them that anyone who attempted to penetrate that force field will be zapped into the high voltage of intimidating counter attacks.
I myself too, sometimes would come up with ridiculously silly answers to defend myself, only to realize the embarrassment I have caused myself at that moment. Is it that difficult to admit flaws, mistakes, or imperfections? Aren’t we all imperfect to begin with? Why do we have to show others something that we are not? Believe it or not, all those imperfections scream out loud in your photography works more than you would want them to. People who see them, will see, and know.
Here are a few examples, which I am sure many of you can relate.
1) Why is your photograph out of focus?
Excuse: It was meant to be out of focus. I purposely created the out of focus effect on the main subject. Don’t you find all photographs which are sharp boring? Why must all photographs be sharp? Why can’t they be blur?
Truth: Camera’s focusing was slow and can’t keep up with subject’s movement.
2) I don’t see anything interesting in your photograph.
Excuse: That is because you do not know how to read my photograph. You are not seeing hard enough. There are layers and layers of meaning, which you have to think from many directions.
Truth: There really is nothing interesting in that photograph.
All images in this entry were taken with Olympus DSLR E-5, ZD 11-22mm F2.8-3.5 and Sigma 30mm F1.4.
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