The Value of Critique

Yesterday I posted a few goals for this year. Today, I want to tell you about how I plan to accomplish one of them: 5. Make critique an important part of improving my photography.

I just finished going through an application process with a small group called the Foundation Workshop Forum. This is a small group of photojournalists made up of some of my favorite photographers in our industry. The absolute best.

The forum is meant to be a meeting place for people who have already attended the foundation workshop or intend to, and the application process consists of 40 members of the group voting on your work/participation in the group. Now that I am a member, I can take part in photo critique, photography discussions, and fun parties whenever everyone is together!

I am sharing this with you because I want you as clients, friends, forum members, and fellow photographers to hold me accountable to this goal of having more experienced photographers give me feedback on my work on a regular basis. I want this to be a year of incredible growth and improvement in my technical skill and my ability to tell a story through photography, and I believe that critique is an important part of this.

So, I am pursuing critique in 4 ways this year:

1) I am going to post a few photos from each wedding for peer-critique on the forum
2) I am going to pay for a 2-hour mentor critique on the forum (1-on-1 portfolio critique from seasoned wedding photojournalist) at least twice a year, hopefully more.
3) I have already asked a few experienced photographers from our area to give me feedback on my work this year.
4) And finally, after prayer and discussion with Brad, we have decided to start putting money away for the Foundation Workshop in 2011. This is a week long critique-based workshop that focuses on mentoring and assignment-shooting for wedding photographers. According to the testimony of others, it is a difficult but rewarding week. And, I am totally excited about it.

Anyway, here is a video about the workshop in case any other photographer friends would be interested in taking part. It was shot and edited by Vladimir Chaloupka, and he gave me the “okay” to post it here. Even this short video is inspirational – I really can’t wait to be part of the workshop itself.