The Internet is a strange place full of people who will tear you down whenever they can despite lacking the requisite qualifications and experience to do so and the tact to do it respectfully. Here's how to handle those who seem like they just want to ruin your day.
Coming to you from Sean Tucker, this great video essay examines the unfortunately common phenomenon of Internet trolls. Among the many insightful things he says, Tucker is particularly right about the lack of talented trolls out there. By and large, the vast majority of trolls are faceless or unaccomplished in their field, and when you call them on that, they'll offer you some sort of faux logic about how their identity and accomplishments don't matter to their critique, except they do. Just like you wouldn't and shouldn't listen to medical advice doled out by any faceless self-proclaimed expert, nor should you take that of a self-proclaimed photography expert. In fact, in all my time and involvement in this industry, I can only name one marginally talented troll I've come across, and his problem was more raging ego than insecurity. Really, the battle against trolls comes down to you: know who's worth listening to and don't waste time or energy on those who aren't.
nope. sometimes the photos just suck.
Nope.... photos don't suck...people who judge them without knowing the full story behind them... they suck!!!!
I don't think you are right. Sometimes the photos do just suck. People choose out of focus, poorly composed photos and then over edit them. It's all subjective and people are often unnecessarily harsh but sometimes the photograph just isn't very good.
You have some nice shots there btw Rafal!
Thank You!
I almost never want to know the story behind a photo. A good photo shouldn't need an explanation.
If a photo doesn't need an explanation You shouldn't have right to judge it ...
I'm not following your logic. If you don't want something judged, don't show it to people. If you believe in your work, it shouldn't matter if people judge it or not.
You don't have to follow my logic ... what I am saying is every picture has much bigger story than people see... its easy to judge people work but is ignorant to me that these days people judge everything without even understanding the entire story... and what you are saying its total nonsense ... just because You want to share your work doesn't mean people have right to destroy your work without even understanding the entire picture and motivation behind it...
Sure they do. Art is a conversation.All opinions are valid. You just don't have to listen to them. You can't please everyone no matter what you do, so ignore the people that don't like your work. Not everyone thinks Beethoven is that great or think the Mona Lisa is overrated. That's life.
You are missing my point... I agree with you when it comes to ignore people who don't like your work...and that is exact message from the video... my point was that people judge photos based on their own experience not based on the entire story behind of creating the image....and that what think is ignorance... again images don't sucks people who judge them they suck...
You two seem to agree but are arguing different topics as if they are mutually exclusive which they aren't.
Nope. Art is absolutely subjective, and photography in all its forms is art. What one person hates in a photograph 10 others will love. No such thing as a photo that sucks...just a photo that doesn't appeal to certain individuals.
That doesn't make sense. If everything is art, either nothing is art or "art" is meaningless. You can't have it both ways.
I didn't define what art is, instead what I said was, art is subjective. What some people will call art others will call meaningless. Subjectiveness means that the thing your "judging" is only applicable to you and no one else. Thus, art is meaningful and "good" or "bad" on a person by person basis. So no, there is no such thing as a photo that sucks...only a photo that an individual believes to suck.
So you want me to accept that art is subjective but your opinion regarding the entire issue is not!? Okay. :-/
You're almost there! Anything that takes feeling to judge will be subjective. Everyone feels differently about everything because we are all viewing the world from our own personal perspectives. Good and Bad are not measurable in an objective sense because no matter how many people agree with you it only takes one person to like a piece of art (or anything for the matter) to shatter the objectiveness we think exists.
He is not just stating an opinion. He's just describing a reality. You are free to have an opinion on that reality but that just helps prove his point.
Art it meaningless if it's meant to be just good or bad. That's just an opinion even if it seems like a community consensus. Art is expression and it doesn't need to serve any purpose other than to be created. Pretentious art snobs would like us to believe that there is such a thing as good and bad art because they usually have a stake in the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw5kme5Q_Yo
I wasn't sure which comment to respond to so I chose the most recent. :-)
So, your definition of art is expression? I'm not trying to be a jerk...I really don't understand. If art is subjective to the audience, art could also be unintentional. Continuing, art could be something that wasn't even created but rather a hallucination. Do you see where I'm going with this? Maybe, rather than using "art" to describe an object, there should be a verb describing the act of reacting to something, real or imagined. Well, that last sentence was in jest. Personally, and I don't mean this to offend anyone, I think the term "art" was created by pretentious snobs. Kinda like the term 'je ne sais quoi' which doesn't really mean anything.
No offense taken. I think it's a great discussion.
That's pretty much sums it up while taking it even further. Art is created expression and IMO it's meant to be a form of expression and can be in many mediums like photography, paintings, drawings, sculptures, dances, food. Anything that was created with a meaning behind it is sound art (IMO again) but it's really up to whoever created the media to classify it as art because we can pass anything off as such. The art snobs of the world have hijacked what it's really about as a means to try inject some objective definition when it's like saying there's good and bad food. We all can make food. Some people love PB&J's (myself included) and I wouldn't say my opinion of good food is objective because if I made my best PB&J someone might call be pedestrian and snobbishly insist that it's bad. It's really just their opinion. They're just more opinionated about it than I am.
We're starting to come together. :-)
My only concern is the ability of the artist, for lack of a better word, to classify something as art. If that's the case, the word has no meaning and shouldn't be used. I hesitate to inject this into the conversation but, it sounds a lot like people being able to decide their sex, race, etc. While I can certainly except a Caucasian individual saying they feel African, I can't accept them saying they are, in fact, African. In the same way, I can accept the creator or the viewer of an object stating they think it's art (artistic), I can't accept them stating categorically, it is art.
I think you're comparing apples to oranges. One can test DNA to find how far back you're closest ancestor is to being of African decent and then we approach the semantic argument of how much African DNA is needed to officially call oneself African. BUT art is just whatever you want to call art. I could drop boogers on piece of white paper from two stories up and call it art if I wanted to. Someone might call it genius. Someone might say WTF?! Maybe I had a reason why I did it and maybe I didn't but it's up to whoever is viewing my booger art to decide if they want to call it good or bad. Maybe some gallery curator sees it and thinks it's the greatest work of this generation and they convince everyone else of the same..... all I'm saying is... do you wanna buy my boogers? haha JK
If you've been snorting coke, someone will probably buy them! :-)
All art is a technical craft...this changes nothing about its subjectiveness.
Without defining art, how can you distinguish between art being subjectively good or bad and saying what is or isn't art? The entire conversation is worthless unless and until you define art.
Personally, I think the word "art" is kinda like the word "awesome." They've been overused and abused to the point of being meaningless.
"Without defining art, how can you distinguish between art being subjectively good or bad and saying what is or isn't art? The entire conversation is worthless"
Simple... you can't and yes the conversation IS worthless. You can discuss what you like and dislike about a piece of art with others but none of it will ever anything other than subjective opinions. You might find that you tend to agree on lots of things but that will never be prove any objectiveness because all it takes is one person to have a different "taste" in art to keep it subjective.
It sounds like you're supporting my point that there is no definition for the word "art". And, if that's the case, "art" isn't an object but rather an idea. Therefore (I come from a programming background so think in terms if If...then...else :-) ) there's no such thing as a "piece" of art. Only artistic ideas invoked by objects.
I couldn't have written that better myself.
Boom! Two people talked something out on the internet without name calling or getting political.
You saw it here folks!
Nobody saw it. The article has run its course and everyone is looking for the next article they can politicize! :-)
Someday, internet archeologists will find this comments section and say "See, we did have hope!"
what if 10 hate it and one likes it ? yep, it just sucks. we have all taken photos that suck. i think i took a few today. no story needed to tell you they suck, they just did.
I think it is important to listen to the comment whether or not the person making it is qualified or has talent. The difficult part comes when you have to decide if the comment is true or not. I've received some great feedback but sometimes because it's negative I want to immediately disregard it. Instead I try to ask myself if there is any merit to the comment. Quite often there is merit and that's where we need to put our ego's aside and try to make a positive change if possible. Other times the commented just has a different personal preference to me, in that case I would just ignore the comment and try to pursue photography in a way that makes me excited. Either way it's not important for the person making the comment to be qualified in any way, the only thing that matters is whether or not the advice contains any wisdom that you can leverage.
No issue with the term wisdom if it means sharing of knowledge, learning, erudition, sophistication, scholarship, philosophy; lore etc etc etc....the list is endless. Alex reference to seeking medical advice doled out by any faceless self-proclaimed experts is a fair point.
It's a stupid point. A better analogy would be food. Clearly, you don't have to be a chef to critique food.
I see, thinking with your stomach again. True but this is not a food forum...and I am not here just to satisfy one persons taste in food, logic or happiness.
So, why are you here? Or me, for that matter? We're not going to agree so continuing the discussion is pointless. But we both love photography so it's all good! :-)
And the lesson here is...you might not agree with me, but it does not make it stupid. Otherwise we will only end up calling each other stupid. That won't help. Nice day to you.
I think and say things that are stupid. Everyone does. That's not the same as being stupid. I would never call you or anyone stupid.
Medical advice is either sound or not sound, regardless of specific situations. Art is a matter of taste. Food is a matter of taste. One needs to be a medical professional to judge medical advice. You don't need to be an artist to judge art or a chef to judge food. Continuing my analogy, you can like a particular dish or not but that doesn't make it good or bad cooking. There are, however, objective standards by which cooking is judged. The same is true of art, despite what anyone says.
It was a ridiculous, and therefore stupid, analogy. I'm quite certain, from the little you've written, that you are most definitely not stupid. Had I found you to be so, I wouldn't have replied.
Sam, Chill, everyone do not say that even if they were thinking about it. Enjoy your day.
I looked up "FAF" and still have no idea what that means.
I didn't see that one. :-)
I wish I was seen enough to have people troll me. lol
Amen, brother! :-)
Excellent video. Like him, I don't subscribe to the "it's ok to tear people down just because they put their work out in public" theory. I don't care how crap I may think their work is, they're still humans who are making it. I agree with him that there's a big difference between a troll who's out to tear people down, and someone who wants to encourage others to improve.
I yell at myself more than anyone honestly lol.
I often see those stupid blind comments like “great work, nice picture, congrats!” Even on snapshots taken at high noon with a point and shoot with addition of over saturation. And people that comment like this create truly beautiful work with understanding of photography but they try to encourage those by saying how good that snapshot is. But really what they’re doing is discourage them cause those will never be able to develop the skills if all they’re getting is positive comments. You can’t get a true opinion on a picture with a lack of dislike button.