So here I want to lay out my approach to judging photographs for consistency. A rubric for a useful photography critique. I will be updating it over time as more life is lived.
The main things to establish are “what is the Subject?” balanced with “what are the Distractions?”. These alone can make or break an image, but its also useful to consider composition and style.
Remember there are exceptions for every rule. Anyone can identify an exception, but few can use them to their advantage.
1. The Subject
The Subject could be a person or object, but it also includes the actions of the person or object, the metaphors, symbolism or message. How is the subject intentionally established and identified?
interest, mystery or other reason for the image to exist
symbolism and metaphor, emotion, nostalgia
brightness / contrast / size / placement / color / texture
selective focus
effects (lighting, motion, emotion, gesture)
2. Distractions
Distractions are the curse of photography. Unlike the blank canvas of the artist, photographers have the noise of the world, and have to quiet it down to only what is desired for the image. Post-processing is where a lot of tidying can be done, but the intentional photographer does as much as possible before the shutter button is pressed. Are there any unintentional distractions?
3. Composition
Composition is the arrangement of objects in the frame.
4. Style
Style is the wrapper of an image, and often the glue for a set of images or an entire portfolio. Its the fingerprint of the artist. It is a configuration of how the subject, distractions and composition are dealt with. The style of an image may act as, or be, the subject itself, or can glue together images as part of a series. Style is a fingerprint, a calling card for the artist.