''BE YOUR OWN CRITIC'' is not a simple word...It has lot to say. As you go to a tailor for getting your shirt or pant stitched, you will notice that he follows certain norms, they may be general in category, but that please you...''OH THAT MASTER IS A GOOD TAILOR'' and suggest his name to others...So a photograph needs certain norms to be followed to look pleasing. As I viewed thousands of photographs on sites and in competitions...there is great difference in the photographs submitted for competitions and photographs uploaded on sites...WHY? The photographs submitted in competitions are by serious enthusiasts and pros, who know the norms of formal photography and follow the rules of composition.
2. There are forums on sites, where the learners, the enthusiasts and pros share their photographs. What I want to explain that the pros have that eye, that perception, that post-processing process, which makes their photographs out of the ordinary and they do hard work on it from the time of shoot......where if we wish to find some lacunae, it is difficult for us since the pro concerned took care of the photograph from finding of the subject, exposure, DOF, placement of focal point, leading lines, balance of the objects, colours (colours have a psychological effect in a photograph, since they are warm, cool, vibrant, dull, pastel toned etc.).While the photographers in a learning process, copy other photographer's work, shoot the images and take them as final without giving them a second thought....Copying is not bad, but study the ingredients, follow them and make ur own style with those norms.
3. One photographer wrote, 'i do not follow the rules but ''shoot with intuition''.' I think everyone's intuition does not take him astray...The dictionery meaning of the 'intuition' is "'immediate mental apprehension without reasoning, immediate insight''''. Then what is reasoning in your photograph...Is it a hollow question mark? If it so, give it time to think, to reason, to calculate the work of art, put the ingredients responsible to make it spicy, that interest the people, your own colleagues, your own family members. Otherwise you SIT WITH A CAMERA IN HAND AND YOUR PET DOG IS PLAYING NEAR YOU...NOW YOUR INTUITION ORDERS YOU TO TAKE A PHOTO OF IT....TILL YOU OBEY THE INTUITION AND CLICK THE BUTTON, THE DOG IS OUT OF FRAME AND ONLY HALF HIS BODY IS WELL CAPTURED....following intuition is fine till other parts of your brain adjust with it and u take a complete picture.
