A new platform called ARS offers photographers a way to get honest feedback on their images. Unlike social media, where commenters may be biased by a desire to be nice or get followers, ARS offers no such pressure or incentives. Instead, the photographers sharing images and the people critiquing them are completely anonymous.
ARS was created by Eric Kim, who explained on his website, "Whenever you upload a photograph to Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, etc – most people (to not hurt your feelings) will just say something generic like, ‘Nice shot! [...] If someone saw my picture (and didn’t know who I was), would they still like the picture?"
ARS ditches the social media model, instead presenting users with "equally and randomly" distributed images to critique. The platform features a simple, clean interface in which users have a text field for providing their feedback, as well as "Keep" and "Ditch" buttons. Photographers can view their "Keep" percentage for each uploaded image, as well as the number of critiques provided.
The platform was launched as a beta that has since been updated to version 2. According to Kim, ARS Beta 2 is about 300% faster than the original version. Additional work is underway to eventually launch version 3, as well as an ARS mobile app. Interested photographers can join at ARSBeta.com using a Google account.
I sure can differentiate between those two. The proper response would be to either ignore it or ask why they though it was a piece of junk. That's all. No drama is necessary.
The problem today is that far too many people have nothing to say but say it anyway, the internet makes it easy and encourages them to do so because of its anonymity. Worse still, many of those with nothing to say are hostile, ignorant sh*ts.
So who gets to determine what is hostile and ignorant? Those are accusations that are often used in this upside down politically correct age we are living in to discredit and silence people.
@PhilDunn You have a good point but I would suggest the best answer, not an entirely satisfactory one, is public opinion. I do agree that this upside down politically correct age we are living in is rather like McCarthyism, so I am thinking of a section of the public that excludes those people. Gets complicated as one could argue I am only willing to listen to those that agree with me.
Public opinion today wouldn’t work due to the madness of political correctness, the delicacy of the latest two generations, the high levels of mental illness and people on psychotropic drugs, and the amount of left wing fascism that exists in the mainstream that is hell bent on attacking freedom of speech and expression in any way. The people practicing that fascism, by the way, are the same people that spread one of the biggest lies going today, that they are liberal. Sure they are, right until you disagree with them and their collective.
I like to watch a lot of older TV shows and movies, and in fact I have a large collection on disc of my favorites. Most new movies and TV shows don’t interest me. A big part of that is how much of the things I mentioned have affected such media, and media in general. When I watch older movies and TV shows little of that exists. You can even see it in the commercials of the past. The difference is stark. Feelings are now more important than facts.
Yes and be SURE to collect anything you like on a physical medium like a DVD or a hard-disk because with the idiotic and chaotic winds of moral change we see today, many of those programs could find themselves removed from streaming services because they didn't meet some progressive's "code."
Exactly. And all it will take for the movies and TV shows on disc to disappear is for just one studio to decide to do it. The others will quickly follow. Putting aside what they will then make available, crappy quality, in terms of video and audio quality, will be all that is left. That higher technical quality is one of the reasons why I buy what I can on disc.
Sadly, much of the older TV shows I enjoy are neglected by the studios in offering them in Blu-Ray quality. Most older American TV shows produced on film, which were most of them, are still not offered in Blu-Ray HD quality. Such a shame. One of the reasons why younger people refuse to watch old shows is because they look and sound old. By remastering these old shows and offering them in HD quality, and even UHD quality, they, and perhaps their more wholesome tones and messages, would stand a much greater chance of being appreciated by the last two generations.
Some of them, from good copies are shown on the various nostalgia channels. Best to just record them. Even then, I've seen them censor scenes from TV shows from the 1960's!! Couple that with censorship of nudity, language and violence from TV shows from the 1990's (freer time them on network TV) and you've got a weird mix of puritanism and progressivism.
Perhaps we have different standards when it comes to video and audio quality but I have yet to see good quality video and audio of older shows on TV. Not even close. Not even in the neighborhood of close. Even the newer stuff is always compromised by the abuse of the channels and pay TV distributers when it comes to BS compression and bandwidth restrictions. In other words, more and more channels and lower video and audio quality.
"you've got a weird mix of puritanism and progressivism."
Yeah it is funny how some things are censored now while so much trash is allowed to go through. Madness.
I'll stick with Flickr. True, Flickr can seem to have a lot of "noise," with lots of folks posting their vacation snapshots and such (just like FB), but if you spend a bit of energy sorting through all of the groups that are available, you can create a community of folks with more similar interests and aesthetics as your own...
I really valued Flickr but unfortunately people treat it more like Instagram these days with only likes and no comments (the interaction was KEY!) left most of the time. Still, I tend to visit it more than Instagram.
@rob, while I appreciate Flickr comments on my stuff, they are also a tiny bit of a pain to receive because on Flickr the culture is that you respond to them, which is good, but lays an obligation on the receiver. Some people are really good at this interaction but I struggle to find good responses besides a lame thank you; because of this, I will often err on the side of not leaving a comment.
I have great sympathy for people dealing with mental issues, but I don’t think the truth, freedom of expression and society should be harmed and restricted as a result. Overcompensation and avoidance as a result of the madness and lie of political correctness has made such conditions much more likely, and much worse for those already affected. I wish you the best in dealing with such issues.
@PhilDunn, Your views are cr*p. Maybe I do not really think so but by your reckoning I have every right to say so, regardless of any justification or whether it causes harm to you or anyone. Great empathy there.
Seems like a nice idea, but who's to say the public has any taste? It may be helpful for a beginner or novice looking for some feedback, but an artist should stand behind their work regardless of the current everyday quotidian critique.
Some professionals are 'art' photographers and are unlikely to benefit from the critique of the general public, who may be uncomfortable with works that 'aren't proper photos of proper things'.
Those looking to make a living from landscape, portrait, wedding and other types of commercial photography would be well-advised to get familiar with the general public's idea of a 'good photo' though. This service might be of benefit to them.
Actually, anonymity greatly encourages honesty. That's why whistleblowing is often allowed to be done anonymously. Of course some people will abuse their anonymity and use it to simply be jerks to others, but in this case what incentive would someone have to wrongly criticize your photos if no one knows where the photos come from.
This is an aside from this specific issue, but I have often been surprised by how some others might really like a picture that I don't think is that great, and vice versa.
I noticed that on photos that I have posted on Google Map reviews where I can see the click count. Some "mundane" images are clicked on a lot and others that I think are better are often not clicked on much.
I look at the Insights on Facebook photo posts and see the same thing.
Hurts a bit when an image you spent days planning and hours meticulously editing gets a couple passing glances and a few kind words but the shot that you took in a hurry that was slightly out of focus and of something you see every day gets praised like the second coming of Christ...
That is all very well if you want to sell photos, but if you want to be creative or become an artist you need to do your thing, regardless of what other people think. Great artists have been committed not to getting praise but to being creative and inventing new genres in the process.
@Hasa says great artists have been committed not to getting praise but to being creative and inventing new genres in the process. How true.
Apart from a lifelong obsession with photography, my second love is classical music. I have a few favourite composers and Sibelius is equal first with Bruckner and Mahler.
What I so love about Sibelius is that his symphonies and tone poems are full of ideas and emotions for which words fail utterly, yet their messages are often clear and articulate. Much the same with Bruckner and Mahler symphonies.
So it is with my ambitions in my pictures. I will never achieve anything that lives on after me by more than a short intervals but in my lifetime I will never give up trying.
That is what makes great art so powerful. It has immortality or as near to it as one can get. And as the famous art historian Ruskin said, never judge a civilisation by its history, but by its art. Only that speaks the truth.
Why do you say that? It's a fact that people are far more inclined to be honest under anonymity. Now if you had said you want *everyone* to nice about it then you would have a point.
For example: www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45792349
That was revealed today (October 8), but "According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the company knew about the issue in March but did not disclose it."
ARS may think that it has found a way to remove the incentives for snarky or cloying comments, but that does not mean that the comments will not be exactly that. I'm not criticizing ARS, but the public today seems to have lost the ability to be objective.
Blog comments, no matter what the subject, show a lack of civility today. These are the times we live in.
Anonymity encourages this behavior. People are slightly more reluctant to tarnish their actual name by being a d**k without cause, but their screen name? Here come the insults...
@Bodkin - I've been meaning to tell you something about your work for some time now. If you post it on ARS, I'll promise to tell you what I'm thinking.
"Blog comments, no matter what the subject, show a lack of civility today. These are the times we live in."
On the flip side a lot of people today are also easily offended, and in fact encouraged to be through the madness and lie of political correctness that is the scourge of our modern age.
I think it's more likely that one will see honesty if the commentator is anonymous as there is no chance of reprisal. Honesty with civility is ideal, but one should rather want honesty without civility rather than civility without honesty when it comes to a critique of one's art.
"one should rather want honesty without civility rather than civility without honesty when it comes to a critique of one's art"
When it comes to everything!
Not to inject politics into the discussion, but that's why Trump was elected. Even though not everything he says checks out as accurate and is certainly not always civil, people appreciated that at least he was saying what was on his mind, correct or not.
Phil, the amount you complain in these comments about people preferring civility (or as you smear it, "political correctness"), one might think you are offended by their honest opinions about how humans should interact. It's almost as if you "reject valid criticism because they see it as negative".
"Then I am sure you will defend those people's right to freedomly express their dislike for transgressing rules of civility."
Read more carefully what I have written. I'm all for freedom of expression. The people you are talking about often are not, and use excuses, in this case "transgressing rules of civility," to stifle, censor and ban freedom of expression. So while I support such people being able to express such an opinion I support ignoring and denouncing such people if they are trying to do that. Disagreeing with and denouncing someone is not about being against freedom of expression.
Remember, the only kind of speech that needs protection is speech that others could find offensive. If all speech was loving and sweet as strawberries and cream then there would be no need to protect it, would there?
It's interesting how these weak liberal snowflakes are able to censor the strong conservative alphas. Oh wait. That doesn't really happen (at least not more than the other way around), and your exaggerated claims don't change that. Instead they "denounce" people with objectionable-to-them opinions, much like you are doing. Do you not realise the symmetry here? Anyway, you are the person who said "not to inject politics" and then consciously injected it into this thread on photo critique. So I am ejecting myself from this fruitless discussion ;)
My main problem, after using it for two days, is that the actual critiques and the "keep" score rarely match. I think the service would work much better if anyone saying "keep" or "discard" HAD to leave specific critiques.
I believe Usefilm had a system where you could only critique if you posted enough images and made certain amount fo critiques. Its also limited how often you could upload an image vs how many images you critiqued/score. Either way grow a thicker skin and ignore or aggravate the trolls.
Uhh... my problem isn't trolls. I've gotten some great critiques, but they don't match with the keep%. An image with twelve critiques all saying it is good with a 2% keep rate is a little bizarre, no? I'm just saying, positive or negative, people clicking keep/discard should be required to explain their choice. Makes the system more useful.
I periodically judge camera club competitions. What several participants have remarked to me was how they appreciated that I explained what I liked and did not like (and why) about every single image.
Moderation of critiques is going to be really important here. Reviews should not be surfaced unless a certain number of other anonymous people are randomly sampled to agree/disagree with the review. Blind anonymous feedback is going to bring out a lot of negativity.
The problem with that is today you have a lot of people that would reject valid criticism because they see it as negative. There are a lot of politically correct people today that are easily offended by anything negative.
You will have to prove your insinuation that thin-skinnedness is somehow correlated to political correctness. As an initial counter-evidence, I offer a certain Twitter-happy resident of the White House.
Did they forget the "E" in the product name? Can't this be accomplished on Reddit (not a user)? Seems like an invitation to unqualified harshness and platitudes. Go finds some photo friends, join a local group, bring your support dog if you have to.
It's an interesting idea with one major fault...at least for me. When someone critique's my work I always look at their portfolio....if they have good work and obvious skill then I tend to take their opinion seriously. If on the other hand I see poor compositions, a lack of artistic vision, and all around poor photography then I tend to dismiss those opinions.
In this case since it is anonymous there is no way to filter people out this way...
I don't agree with that at all. The appreciation of art and the creation of art are two very different skill sets. e.g. You don't need to be an expert painter to be an influential art critic.
@Zorgon - You are very correct....but the likelihood of someone on one of these photo sites who is obviously a terrible photographer being an 'influential art critic' seems highly unlikely. Chances are someone with an eye for art has at least an artistic vision for their own work too.
It is common blind mind attitude. Never think about critique content at first, think every time how to discredit anyone opinion. The most if this critique is truth.
It is very easy to criticize other's work, just check all those cinema experts trashing movies when probably can't set a proper frame themselves. No thanks.
A critique is one thing, appreciation is another. Posting for critiques, yes, I'd like to see the portfolio or cv of the person who's writing the critiques.
Yeah, that Roger Ebert guy... never made a film in his life, yet for some strange reason, filmmakers seemed to care what he thought about their work. That’s messed up.
The opinions of the people who are going to be viewing the photos (i.e. the general public) can often be more insightful than the opinions of an elite group of "experts" who make up a tiny percentage of the population.
It's free? Are photo editors any less random than real people?
I don't know – maybe the random people know a thing or two, too – and maybe they get 'voted up', so at that point you know who to trust and who to treat as random people.
How would the general public be more insightful than an expert?
What does the general public know that an expert doesn't already know? Especially since photo editors already see thousands of photographers as well as trends and tastes that the general public doesn't have any clue about.
A good photo editor ALREADY knows the public better than the public knows themselves.
@vFunct If people want an expert tutor they'll have to pay for one. Some may be happy to take the advice of amateurs like themselves but who have more experience.
@vFunct i think I answered your question though. People who amateurs might find it useful. (I assume professionals or would be professionals take other routes.) Also, in my experience of photography forums - for example APUG (analogue photo) , there are plenty of (perhaps) retired experts and enthusiasts willing to share their life knowledge. Your 'random person' criticism is not necessarily true.
Interesting site, we have many years ago something like this, the name was something if I remember well Shuttercity and I use for some years then they shot down.... but was nice!
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