9 Ways How Criticism in Photography can help you Improve

Last updated on March 7th, 2022 at 02:24 pm

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Criticism in Photography is of the utmost necessity after a certain period. Criticism involves hidden improvements, challenges, steps, and the direction to move forward.

For e.x – In Photography, making yourself comfortable in Auto mode doesn’t make you utilize your potential fully.

That’s why it’s beautiful to say to yourself, “That’s not what you wanted,” etc. Nobody will say anything to you if you don’t appreciate and challenge yourself.

In this post, I will discuss how Criticism can help improve your Photography Journey.

Let’s be honest that we all take photos, and to our understanding, it’s the best shot to our knowledge. Some take photos casually & for some, it’s professionally. The only difference here is that professional photographers criticize themselves and constantly crave the best and try to do complete justice to their photos.

let’s come to our pointers

How Criticism in Photography can Help you Improve

1. It will take out the best from you

Let’s suppose that you went on a wildlife photography trip and you spotted a cheetah running after the animals. You wanted to take a good shot of the running cheetah; after you had clicked the pictures, the cheetah was entirely out of focus. The hazy & blurry kind of effect can make you a little upset. Now you have two options –

1. Take the shots until it matches your expectation
2. Go back and come some other time

You will be saying that; this is how Criticism works. The not-in-focus cheetah shot can make you crave the best picture.

2. It will make you Disciplined in the right direction

Criticism in Photography will not always be when someone else tells you; it should be the inner voice.

Suppose you had clicked a photograph, i.e., the person who had first seen that is only “you,” criticizing yourself should never get excluded at any moment.

Suppose you tell yourself that you want the best shot from your end. It will keep you motivated for a few minutes, but later, you will lose control and forget. That is where discipline comes into play. Criticism can maintain the field where you always awaken more strongly than before.

3. It will make you more focused

Focus is an essential element in Photography; if your subject is blurred, it will portray a wrong signal to the viewers. There’s a fact behind this: if you want to improve yourself, you must somewhat enhance your shortcomings, not neglect them. If you try to focus on a particular issue and practice again & again, then the possibility of getting that shortcoming improved will be high.

For e.x- the major issue I had faced was getting the exposure triangle balanced when I had started. I tried & tested a lot, but nothing seemed like working. Finally, I realized that I needed to get in-depth about the exposure triangle to overcome this issue & to create a balanced image, i.e., that made me focused.

In this case, if you are facing barriers, then only focusing on them can help resolve the issue.

4. It will improve your knowledge

You must have heard that when you keep on learning, you keep growing. But the hard fact here is how to measure that growth?

You had gained the knowledge; you must have applied it somewhere; then how can someone tell that you’re growing!

For e.x – In Photography, if you didn’t know how the white balance works in different conditions. Then, after two months, you applied in the field and got the colors correct in other situations. That’s where the growth is hiding, it shall not shout out loud, but the change will always be there.

Criticism can improve your knowledge that if you are behind in using white balance, you must be very keen to learn that aspect before going out next time.

5. It will make you accept failures

Failure comes in every form, from personal to professional & Photography failure is not an exception. If many people criticize you, that doesn’t make you wrong in anything. Instead, it would help if you worked harder.

The term failure could occur from your camera viewfinder to your desired location in the photography world. Also, if you consider other people’s perspectives on your work as a failure, then count this in too.

For e.x – if you had shot a fast-moving object blurred if your composition was not up to the mark, you need to accept those failures & that’s a signal that you are moving ahead, to be honest.

6. It will make you value your every shot

You will have to faceCCriticism someday or the other, but the only way through this is to improve constantly. When you start valuing every click, you have to give it all whenever you push a shutter release. So please make the most out of it at the very starting when you choose to shoot.

7. It will make you alert about your surroundings

When you are on an alert that you have to utilize your surroundings fully, the mind will be in action mode.

For e.x – If you are shooting a landscape in the mountains & you only shot the hills, the surroundings wouldn’t get considered. In addition, there might be flowers in the foreground or the rocks in the foreground that will make the picture more enjoyable than the only shot of the mountain. Especially Landscape Compositions will play a vital and defining role here.

8. It will make you completely research the destination

You don’t want to be in the situation where you had arrived in a place & left in confusion about what shall be the composition here. That will create doubt and waste time if you tell yourself that this would be the desired location that you are heading next & you wanted your best to come out. Then, researching thoroughly about that location & making perspectives from the other people’s pictures would have been done in the pre-planning stage.

9. It will make you respect other photographers work

That would be one of the most critical points.

For e.x- If you had shot perfect light trails in the mountains from the full-frame camera. You will be delighted that it took years for you to shoot this ideal dream shot. When you look at other photographers creating different-level pictures, you will respect their works. It took you years to take that dream light trail shot at your desired destination with your selected full-frame camera, then think how many years it would have taken to create the other level shots.

I hope you have got my point of what I was portraying here.

The conclusion that arises here is Criticism in Photography in any field & you only have hard work in your hand.

Don’t forget to share if that has helped you realize the importance of Criticism.

Until then, see you in the next post & I am open to Criticism if you have any.