Originally posted by Sluggo I have been growing uncomfortable with the atmosphere of objective scrutiny of photos - both mine and everyone else's. I've long thought of photography, and every other artistic endeavor, as simply expression: a way of communicating certain feelings or thoughts to (or, what the hell, firing certain neurons in) the viewer; and I'm afraid I think that telling others how they should have composed or processed differently is usually unhelpful, or worse, indicates that the critic by invoking statements of photographic conformity/correctness reveals they doesn't really understand a photo. When a photographer has a grasp of the rules but violates them, whether consciously or not, that should first be considered communication, part of the work, and not automatically a mistake. I've found myself apologizing for my posts in advance just because of anticipation of others' comments, even when I'm actually happy with the output. That's a poor headspace to do photography in. I have no basis for complaint here, since the challenge rules explicitly say "your personal reactions to photographs are as valid as anyone else’s" and so encourage everyone to fire away. Best I just step away until I can feel differently about the enterprise.
In my opinion I'd rather receive some criticism than a heartless "cool" that is the norm on most platforms.
If someone takes their time to point something out, be it a "better" composition or way processing it at least shows that they
looked at your photo.
I'm happy if someone points something out to me as by taking a photo every day it's easy to take photos with less care, or edit them with less care, or simply select the one to upload with less care.
I haven't seen anyone 'accusing' someone of making a mistake though, but I suppose everyone will take the comment aboard differently.
I specifically try to say something about the photo, be it a random comment, a bit of criticism or a question, if I have given you or someone else the feeling that I'm telling them that they're doing something wrong I'm sorry, it's quite surely not what I've been trying to do.