Is it impossible to get valuable critique on such a forum?

lnguyenh wrote:

People have very different levels of ambition and appreciation of pictures.

With all the pictures available right now (sites like 500px, books, magazines, etc...), I find it quite easy to compare my own pictures to pictures that I like/admire. These pictures give me a goal, something I can strive to reach, or at least they give me some inspiration. Being my own judge is easy I think. It is just to be honest and humble.

Sometimes I see pictures where people ask for CC, and I feel like these people have done no effort to develop their taste.

They take a snap in their garden and immediately post the pic, asking for CC. They have no idea what they try to reach. And often they dont see how bad their pictures are. And still, some people are there to say "nice shot", "awesome", and I feel it is really not helping the OP to say such things.

But again, I try to remember that everyone has different tastes, and I say to myself: "be nice". And I do also sometimes say "nice shot", and maybe some other guy thinks this shot is crap... Arghhh headache.

Anyways... Whatever your interest is, would the shot you critique be worthy of being in a street photo book, in a bird pictures book, in a fashion advertisment, in a travel book, etc... Be honest with yourself, or with the OP! Maybe the pictures is decent, but is it really "stunning" ? Is it helping to make OP think his pictures are great when they are not?

And sometimes there are attempts to save a picture using photoshop, or some bold cropping, but the picture is just bad a the first place, why even try to save it?

Then I say to myself: "but everyone has a different taste, so dont be mad for this"...

In my mind, there IS a difference between a snapshot and a photography. I take snapshots and love them, but I recognize them as such. I love them because they are memories, but I can see they dont have any value for others. For me a "photography" should be something above that, more universal.

Anyways, maybe it is impossible to get valuable critiques on such a forum because people have so many different levels of appreciation and it is very hard to find people critiquing (me included in that) with the same level of appreciation than yours, too hard to filter the information.

Much better to build small networks, with people you respect the work and the advice, than some random dudes on a huge forum.