What to Expect from a Photo Critique

It never surprises me how often Scott Kelby’s name comes up when I am talking about photography with someone. I remember, back when I started out in photography, how much I learned from watching his videos with “The Photoshop Guys”. Scott, to me, is photography education personified.

Scott has been on the show a few times, for Insights From Scott Kelby and Timeless Photography,  but I still remember the first time I met him in person. It was at a Photoshop World in Vegas, and I was at the hotel bar where everyone from the conference hung out. Scott walked in and the room seemed to gravitate slowly towards him. I recall thinking “it’s gotta be weird to be him right now” at the same time as thinking “I should go introduce myself”. Clearly, I am part of the problem. Still, I walked over and before I got to him he spotted me and walked towards me to say hi. Since then I have had the pleasure of seeing him at a few conferences, and hanging out for a few hours at the NAMM show in Anaheim, CA, but one of the most amazing things is to just sit in a session Scott is teaching and watch him work.

Scott Kelby was born to do what he does, and I’m not talking about the business side of Scott here. Sure, Scott is an icon in the photography world. He’s the founder and namesake of KelbyOne, the gold standard in online photography education, and the creator of Photoshop World, but the teaching… that is where Scott shines. His knowledge is up there with the best in the business, but his pacing, speech patterns, and demeanor, all make absorbing that knowledge so easy. He has authored numerous books, and he shares a lot of his knowledge on his blog at scottkelby.com.  I’d argue that his Guest Blog Wednesdays are one of the most amazing resources out there for photographers, and twice now I have been honored to write a post there, for Five Lessons Learned from Hosting the Behind The Shot Podcast and The Joy of Live Music Photography.

Scott’s Annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk – the world’s largest social photography event – just seems to get bigger each year, and he’s more than just well versed in photography by the way. Scott is an accomplished musician, playing guitar (what an amazing guitar collection he has), bass, drums, and piano. Plus, he is one of the few photographers that seemingly can photograph anything – Any. Thing. Travel, fashion, beauty, people, the great indoors, automotive, sports, anything he points his camera at seems to crop itself for him, and that is one of the things I love about Scott’s work. His eye for composition, and what makes a shot work, is amazing.

That is what brings him here today.

Scott does regular photo critique shows, usually blind photo critiques, on his show The Grid, usually with Erik Kuna, and his insight is amazing. I firmly believe that one of the best and fastest ways to improve your photography is to get fair honest critiques from a trusted source, and that’s what Scott is doing. I also did a series of image critique shows, with my buddy Don Komarechka, for two years, but that stopped when the war broke out in Ukraine, and then Don moved to Bulgaria. At some point while we were doing those shows Scott wrote a blog post titled “What to expect from a photo critique“, and it was so damn good that I started mentioning it at the start of every critique show I did with Don. Let me explain…

Often I would get an email from someone who’s image Don and I critiqued trying to explain the image, and in doing so trying to let me know why we were “wrong” with what we had said. The same thing happens when I judge one of the image competitions I do periodically here in California. People feel that if we judges and critique people only knew the hardships they went through to get an image, or what the crowd was like, or what the music sounded like, or insert your explainer here meant, that we would understand how amazing their image was. We just didn’t understand their art!

But here’s the deal, We were not there. We didn’t hear the music, and it doesn’t matter that you only had 30 minutes at 12 noon free during the family vacation to capture it. We are critiquing / judging your photo based on what a random viewer that sees your image for the first time would get from it… oh, and your image title… it’s not helping if it brings no expectation or relationship to our mind. Calling your amazing landscape image “Run Puppy, Run” when the dog in it is so small that I didn’t even see it actually detracts from it. It’s a letdown.

Sorry, back to Scott’s post. This week I shared his latest call on Twitter for Blind Critique image submissions, and then it hit me. I ran to my wife saying “I’ve got it! I know the perfect show for Scott Kelby”!!!!

Join Scott Kelby and me as we try to help you better understand the benefits of getting image critiques, and while we break down his blog post “What to expect from a photo critique”, on this Behind the Shot.

Scott’s 1-Day Workshop

Scott Kelby’s 2023 Ultimate Photography Crash Course: kelbyonelive.com

Connect with Scott

Personal: scottkelby.com
KelbyOne: kelbyone.com
KelbyOne Live: kelbyonelive.com
KelbyOne Insider: insider.kelbyone.com
Facebook (Personal): @SKelby
Facebook (Business): @KelbyOneOnline
Instagram (Personal): @scottkelby
Instagram (Business): @kelbyonepics
Twitter (Personal): @ScottKelby
Twitter (Business): @KelbyOne
YouTube (Personal): @scottkelby
YouTube (Business): @kelbymediagroup
Pinterest: @kelbyone
Photoshop World: photoshopworld.com
LinkedIn: @kelbyone

Scott’s Class Mentioned During the Show

How to Critique Your Own Photos: kelbyone.com

Scott’s Podcast

The Grid: kelbyone.com

Scott’s Books

rockynook.com
amazon.com

Scott’s Photographer Pick

Dan (Dano) Steinhardt: @dano_steinhardt

Steve’s Guest Posts for Scott’s Blog

Five Lessons Learned from Hosting the Behind The Shot Podcast
The Joy of Live Music Photography