[Stecyk]

If we could assemble great photographers, both living and dead, who could voice their opinions on various photographs, would they all agree on their opinions of the different photographs? Would some see certain features as strengths and others as weaknesses? Would some see mystery and others see lack of clarity? Would some see style and others see lack of style?

If we take RFS's approach of weightings for certain categories, do we then complicate things by adding the concept of utility to provide additional precision and insight? An example away from photography is, does having a 1000 pairs of shoes put you in a better position than owning 990 pairs of shoes, compared to anther scenario 0 and ten pairs. Most would agree that 990 and 1000 are identical, but there is a world of difference between 0 and ten pair shoes. Going back to photography, how much is enough? Is it important that everything be perfect, or is being perfect in itself a flaw?

In reading Karsh's biography, I learned that he was encouraged and he encouraged others to find their own styles. Thus, aside from the obvious problems, such as eyes being out of focus, one could argue that a person is finding his or her own style. While we might do things differently, it isn't our photograph.

Having said all that, critiques are useful. They show us how others perceive our photographs. They comment on lighting, background, poses, contrast, style, and other elements. Then it is up to us whether we could those comments of value. In some cases, we will easily agree that our photograph suffers from the shortcomings identified. In other cases, we'll just chalk up to our personal preferences (read style) and move on.

If I were to provide advice to anyone chasing his or her own style it would be this: expose your work to lots of different people with different backgrounds with different attitudes. In many cases, their comments will contradict each other and on those elements freely follow your own biases and intuition. But where these disparate individuals seem to provide a similar comment, think extremely carefully before disregarding their comment.