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Hello! I would be interested in hearing your thoughts RE personal taste and its role in a constructive critique. I can't imagine analyzing and assessing a photograph without allowing my prejudices and predilections to enter the equation! Is this a bad thing? A good thing? I will welcome your ideas and opinions!
I think personal taste is everything. How many times have you gone to see an Oscar winning move and thought it was crap!! It happens to me a lot.
Well i think with photographs its the same
Personal taste is indeed the driver in critiques IMO. Some things are clear and concrete: a mis-focussed image is just that and pointing that out would not be because of personal taste (unless someone has something for those!!). Grossly underexposed or overexposed images too, unless that was the artistic intention of the photographer - in which case personal taste comes in. Some people prefer a cooler WB in their images, some warmer, personal taste...but an obvious colour cast is usually not. Compositions are very subjective, but certain "rules" are generally more appealing and accepted...anything "experimental" or "out of the box" is personal taste, with many being a love it or hate it type of thing. Same for "artistic blurs"...love it or hate it. Personal taste...and to answer your question: it's a good thing!
I've always been fascinated at how different people's tastes can vary so much when viewing the same thing. Pretty cool when you think about it...
There are two sides to photography; technical and artistic. The technical side is objective; every experienced photographer knows and understands a technically successful photograph. Artistic is decidedly subjective; to me, a photograph should evoke some emotion or feeling; perhaps cause us to recall an experience or memory; make us smile, laugh or cry. We are human and as such, subjectivity has to be part of our thought process. We should critique images based on their technical value and we should not hesitate to express the emotion and feelings that we experienced upon viewing the image.
