8×10Gallery.com

Where to go to feedback and criticism about your pictures?

After taking a few hundred or maybe even a few thousand shots you want to get out there and show the world what you’ve done. You want to dazzle people with your style and technique!

Well hold on there, before you go burning up the DSL lines, spreading your pictures from one side of the world to the other, keep a few things in mind.

The Internet can sometimes be a harsh and unforgiving place. It would be sad to see a budding photographer put the camera down because of criticism that seemed harsh or cold.

Start off slowly. With your new forays into the shooting world, go to the big sites with lots of people who can come across your photos. There are plenty of places on the web where you can display your photos and get some gentle feedback. Places such as Webshots, Flickr, Smugmug and PBase are a good starting point. They have LOTS of users with varying backgrounds who will certainly offer some encouragement if they like your work.

Discussion forums. As I continue to see, the discussion forum is an excellent way to show off work and get pointers and tips from others. Usually populated with more “seasoned” shooters you can expect more analytical and technical feedback. You can expect comments on over exposure, composition, depth of field, etc. Most discussion forums want you to link to your photos rather than embedding them in a message. This keeps others from having to use their hard drive space for your photos. It’s usually no problem since linking to Webshots, Flickr, so you may want to discover which one suits you best as you may be using it quite a bit.

Make sure you read the rules before posting. Not every forum is alike and each will have its preferred method of interaction. Read a few weeks, if not months, worth of posts to get the feel of how they operate. Also, make sure the feedback given is what you’re looking for. Some forums are very technical and will be very critical. (I’ve seen some pretty spirited debate on the background choice!)

Others will be more teaching oriented and offer comments on what they like about your shots and what can be improved. Don’t get in over your head. Make sure you can handle the criticism before you post. If nothing else, state up front you are new and you’re looking for advice on how to improve. This should signal, “Take it easy on me”.

There are literally thousands of forums out there. The easiest way to find one is to use Google, or Yahoo, etc. Just type in “photography discussion forum” and you’ll find plenty. If you want to get with people of like minds and equipment, add your camera type such as Nikon or Canon to the beginning.

A few I have found worth a look:
http://www.canonites.com – For Canon shooters
http://www.dpreview.com – This site gets A LOT of posts. Lots of technical info here.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/ – Mainly for Canon, but plenty of shared shots to learn from.

Besides being great methods for feedback, all of these sites can help you grow as a photographer. Browse the photos of Webshots or a discussion forum and analyze the pictures. What do you like about them? What would you improve? Would you be able to make the same photo? Is there an interesting angle or technique being used? I’ve learned plenty from what other photographers have posted. In several cases, I’ve been making the same mistake (without realizing it was a mistake) and learned to fix it…

Find photographers who shoot similar subjects as yourself and study their work.

I’ve recently been reviewing lots of “motor sports” photography and I have already come across new places and new techniques. A few “boards” I’ve come across have members who shoot motor sports for a living. They have dozens of examples of their work, interesting angles, panning shots, advice on lenses, shutter speeds, best time to shoot, etc. Many posters will provide a lot of the technical details about the photo along with it, such as shutter, aperture, ISO setting, etc. This is a huge learning experience to see the shot and the settings used to make it.

In some cases if the information isn’t posted right with the photo you can download it to your machine, right click on it and go to Properties. You should be able to see the technical data right there. I do this all the time.

The discussion forum can let you ask questions directly to the photographer. Just remember to be specific in what you want. A general “Wow, how’d you do that?” probably won’t get an answer. But a “What shutter speed did you use?” or “Which lens were you working with?” will most likely get an answer.

There are plenty of ways to get advice and feedback from others. Sure, a photography school would be great, except for that time and money commitment. Using photo sharing services and discussion forums as a tool of learning is so easy and quite honestly if you get with the right group, it’ll become a lot of fun.

Good luck!

And don’t forget, if you want a place to start, you can post your photos right here in my discussion forum.

http://www.8×10gallery.com/forum

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