Photography Is Not a Courtroom

On how criticism turns into judgment

Sometimes a discussion about a photograph turns ugly for the wrong reasons.

Not because people disagree. Disagreement is fine. Useful, even.

What bothers me is when it stops being about the picture.

It becomes about being right.

You can feel the shift immediately.

It’s no longer:

“This doesn’t really work for me.”

Or:

“I’m not sure where to look.”

It becomes verdicts.

Too centered. Bad composition. Wrong.

I’ve always found that shift strange.

Saying “this doesn’t really work for me” is not the same as saying “this is bad.”

One owns a reaction. The other passes judgment.

Rules help, of course.

They help beginners. They help all of us, sometimes.

But they are tools. Nothing more.

Things start to go wrong when people use them as proof.

Proof that the image fails.

Proof that the photographer doesn’t get it.

That’s the part that bothers me.

Because the truth is simpler than that:

we are all still learning to see.

No matter how long we’ve been doing this, or how often our work has been praised or rejected, none of us is finished.

Maybe criticism would be healthier if it stayed a little more personal.

“I lose the subject here.”

“I think the frame feels too crowded.”

“This doesn’t really work for me.”

That should be enough.

Photography is hard enough already.

I don’t see the need to make it harder by talking to each other as if we were passing sentence.

Most of us are just trying to make something work inside a frame.

Sometimes we do.

Sometimes we don’t.