Criticism and feedback
Whose opinion do you trust?
The idea for this post had been half formed in my mind for a while, but the other day I read a Substack post by Manuela Thames and it spurred me to finish it and put it down. The link for Manuela’s post is here; https://manuelathamesundone.substack.com/p/because-i-had-to-climb-a-mountain. In it she says that she stubbornly kept including an image in her portfolio that others wanted her to edit out, but she wanted it in because she had worked hard for it.
It reminded me that I had also done that and it was probably something that other photographers were doing too.
My comment on the post was; I have been guilty of including images in my portfolio because they were hard won, but you have to let them go if they are not strong enough. When the work is exhibited, it should have an effect on the viewer without you having to sit next to it, explaining to each person how much difficulty was involved.’
When you listen to a piece of music are you thinking about how many hours of guitar or piano practice went into it? If the album notes said that one of the tracks on the album was included because it took a long time to make, not necessarily because it was as good as the others, would it make you think more highly of it, or perhaps dismiss it as odd and unprofessional?
Are you guilty of asking people which are your best shots, then ignoring the choices they make? I know I have been.
How are you with criticism? Do you seek it out, have you been surprised by people’s reaction to your work, and is their opinion important to you? For many years I didn’t have much confidence in my work and I was always showing it to people to see if they liked it. This wasn’t much use as a strategy because many of the people I showed work to were not visually aware and would just see the subject of the picture, not any photographic, compositional or printing skill. I would often get questions like ‘Why have you taken a picture of that?
I soon found out that showing work to friends and family usually gets you a polite reply, but rarely any useful, constructive comments. You might have family who are not able to look at your work in the same way that you do. I have had girlfriends in the past who were really dismissive and sarcastic about what I was doing, but none of them were in any way artistic. When I met my wife (who is a painter), it was such a relief to be with someone who understood and was supportive.
Family might be very complimentary about your pictures even if they don’t understand your work or your passion for doing it, but the sort of gushing support of a mum putting your first picture on her fridge is not going to help you with difficult choices about composition or printing.
At the opposite end of the scale you could show your work to people who work with photography, but that doesn’t always help either.
I remember when I was trying to get commercial work in the 80’s and would take my portfolio to various advertising agencies and design studios. I was showing my work to people who employed photographers regularly and were working with images, ideas and design every day. Surely these people would be able to see quality and pick out my best work, or tell me where I was going wrong?
In the span of one week I was at an agency in London and then another in Glasgow in Scotland. Getting to these places wasn’t cheap, I was hardly earning any money and thought that the possible work I could get would be worth the cost. This particular week and these two interviews were a turning point for me, coming home after the second one was the point at which I decided to be honest with myself and my work.
At the London agency I was told that my portraits were strong, but my landscapes weren’t up to much, and a few days later in Glasgow I was informed that my landscapes were the strongest part of my portfolio, but my portraits were rubbish.
I felt so deflated after that second interview, and I was convinced that both the landscapes and the portraits were crap. I felt like throwing the portfolio in the river Clyde as I walked back to the coach station. All of that time, effort and cost had been for nothing, I was so deflated because I believed everything I had done was rubbish (because two people said so).
By the time I was at the coach station I had got myself into a dark mood, but as I replayed their comments in my head I suddenly saw things differently. I had been concentrating on the criticism from each one, not the positive things they said. I remember thinking to myself; ‘I could think about this in terms of the landscapes and the portraits being crap, or I could think of it in terms of the landscapes being strong and the portraits being really good’. Thinking about the interviews I came to see that their comments were contradictory and meant nothing, I concluded that the only person who was fit to judge those pictures was me.
To make a valid selection, I couldn’t just assume that all of my portfolio was top notch, I had to be ruthless with myself and see if I had achieved what I had set out to do, to see if I had put work in there that was the best I could do, or if any of the prints were only in there to make up the numbers. I realised that I didn’t need the opinions of these idiots, I just had to try to have an honest approach to my work. Was that print in there because it took a lot of effort and I thought it deserved to be appreciated? Was that old print in there because it was one of my first successes? was it any good though? If not, it had to be taken out. There were prints in there that had only been included because they were the first good images I had got from a new camera, they also had to go. I had favourites, but they were not necessarily the strongest images. Prints were sometimes included because of nostalgia or to prove a point. I had to be ruthless and weed these out.
Every few years I repeat this exercise and throw out prints that I think are diluting my portfolio, not adding to it. The last time I did this was August of 2024 and I broke my rule stated above. I had decided to put together a self published book, and after a few days of looking at hundreds of prints my judgement was impaired, I was getting overwhelmed and I couldn’t see the wood for the trees anymore.
I asked a good friend and a fellow photographer Matt Lethbridge to look through my rather large collection of 10x8 prints. Matt has got a very good eye and he is an honest, straight talking guy. He very patiently looked through about ten fully stuffed paper boxes and his comments were invaluable. I marked up the boxes of Matt-approved prints and then put them away to give myself time to see them with fresh eyes at a later date. That was 15 months ago, and life has been so busy that I haven’t returned to them yet. But the long time gap is actually going to be an advantage because I will be able to judge them afresh.
So having put forward a proposition that you don’t need other people’s opinion, then contradicted myself, I think the point is that you are ultimately the best judge of your work, but if you need another opinion, choose someone who will understand what you are doing, where you are and is able to suggest honestly where they think you might be getting stuck. I admire Matt’s work greatly and I know he is on the same wavelength as me, and that is priceless.
All of the images I have chosen for this article are ones that were in my portfolio, but have now been weeded out. Feel free to tell me what you think.
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Thank you for reading, please let me know your thoughts.
Andrew Sanderson December 2025.
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One of your best posts! As a photographer and musician, I can tell you that friends and family are NOT my audience. They either have no interest (family) or are supportive of everything (friends). It’s a special kind of person who cares enough to really look or listen and then offer constructive feedback. Hang on to Matt — he’s invaluable.
Great post. In general, as an amateur, I don’t seek much comment for many of the reasons you outlined.
I have noted that the more work I put into an image there is a good chance it wasn’t a good one at first. (This is true for digital and darkroom work.) So that may be a clue. But you put a lot more effort into your images and it pays off so maybe it is a comment on my talent or laziness!
I am often surprised by which of my images would get liked on Flickr. Almost never my favorite. It caused me to take a new look at these images. Since I don’t know any of the commenters it was at least objective.