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Putting yourself on the line

I guess if we just logged all the glories we would be guilty of burying all those hard-earned struggles that accelerate us on our creative journey. So when I say I’m delighted to share this rather uncomfortable experience with you, that’s perhaps a little misleading. So I’ll tell you in a conspiratorial whisper rather than from the roof-tops in the hope you can learn at my expense!!
Having been inspired by the work of Roger Ballen, I signed up for his masterclass (a term I find quite intimidating in itself!).
As part of this experience we were invited to participate in a portfolio review. I was undecided whether to participate. My current series is a work-in-progress and I have nothing more than 5×4 proof sheets ready. And anyway, I was a little scared. Ultimately I decided it was too good an opportunity to miss and was intrigued to know how it felt to have my work openly discussed and critiqued.
Because of where I was sat, I was first up. Now with hindsight, I would, never again show my work that is not presented in a way that I want it to be seen. I presented my ‘proof-sheets’ gingerly with the caveats I’ve mentioned. But to exacerbate things, he made it quite clear he was not interested in the story or motivation behind the images. All that mattered was the image itself. A good image requires no explanation…it should speak for itself. He forewarned us that his feedback would be honest and I was mentally prepared and grateful for this (I think!). The imagined fears were gone…and replaced by real ones, always a step forward.
So we were ‘gagged’…as the fate of our images played out before us. Any hope of glowing feedback soon evaporated as my pictures were systematically dissected. It wasn’t pretty. It started badly…the proof sheets were too small. I could throw no buoyancy aid out as my images sunk without a trace. In all honesty, it was an unmitigated disaster from a ‘showcasing my work’ perspective…the only saving grace was no one knew me…I could go home, lick my wounds and learn from it…
It was a harsh lesson…but a necessary one.
He advised us to be our own harshest critic, if you have any doubt, act on it. Leave nothing to chance. Learn to evaluate your work, identify why it works or doesn’t work. Too often developing photographers take on projects that are too complicated…do something simple and do it well.
It is this ‘cruel-to-be-kind’ honesty that illustrated to me what is required to transform the images I’m making now in to that of ‘world-class’ pedigree. I have no illusions where I am at…and how hard I will have to work…for decades to come. I am a student, learning my trade…and that is it. Whether it makes me feel good or bad about myself is largely irrelevant. I know I needed to hear everything I heard…how I respond is now up to me…and now you.
[Penny Watson is a level two photography student and this post is a edited version of this post in her learning blog, Marmalade Cafe]


Posted by author: Penny

24 thoughts on “Putting yourself on the line

  • I read the fuller version on your blog and I think you took it like a pro Penny. Brave of you to put yourself on the front-line. There was just one thing I wondered – do you think that other photographers are much more critical of work than the people who might actually buy it?

  • That’s only one person’s opinion, not a judgement. I think Roger is a great artist but by his criteria I could easily destroy any number of his snaps. It would be tempting to present him with a few shots by other artists within your set and see what he makes of them, but pointless. People destroying other people’s work only diminishes themselves as artists. If you are happy with your work then who is to say if it’s great art or not. Roger isn’t universally respected as an artist or as an expert. I think he’s great but that’s only my opinion.

  • Yes, me too Dewald and will for sometime to come.
    Catherine, I am sure other photographers are more critical but equally they are likely to be more open-minded to different things too…buyers will use other criteria such as potential to sell and profitability which is different again.
    Darcy, it is just one view as you say and another artist’s views would no doubt differ. I don’t think his intention was to ‘rubbish’ the value of my work. He was viewing all our work using the criteria he would apply to his own work, giving us an insight in to his own well-honed evaluation process. He is clearly meticulous, with strong views on composition, lighting and intention. I know my work has weaknesses…to have them verbalised certainly focusses the mind. I didn’t agree with it all and I would have preferred a pat on the back obviously, but I do think it will improve my methods of working and has already shifted a few mindsets.
    In terms of understanding the meaning in his work, I’m not sure I am too much wiser!! But I am left in no doubt what is required to create them, whether I ‘like’ them or not.

  • We’ve not got Roger Ballen’s perspective on this, but it sounds a very destructive experience to be on the receiving end.

  • Very brave of you to undergo this experience. It is always useful to get an outside perspective that isn’t clouded by the emotional attachment we have with our work After the initial shock it can help focus and make stronger your intentions, whether you accept or ignore the advice given. Just to put it in perspective, I bet that after 50 years of photography you will have a pretty defined set of criteria by which to judge others’ work too, does that mean it’ll be useful to someone starting out or will the work being produced in 50 years be radically different? Just a thought!

  • If we were already happy with our work I guess we wouldn’t need to be studying here … the thing about criticism that makes it worthwhile to receive is the analysis that goes with it. Learning what criteria people use to evaluate artwork and how they then reach an informed opinion on it – that is a good thing. Hearing things like “that’s great but I don’t know why” isn’t at all helpful, that is just an opinion and so not worth much attention.
    But I think you need other people’s input to get enough distance from your work to be objective about it, although at the same time all things are said in a particular context and what is true in one context may not be in another. That means you have to evaluate the criticism to see if its valid for you in a given instance. Photography does seem to have loads of different contexts you could be operating in!

  • Oh my goodness, Penny! Thank you for sharing such an insightful post. I’m certainly going to come back to it a couple of times; if you don’t mind. An experience that I think is more than worthwhile and that I wish I could experience.

    • Your welcome Yiann…it’s my first masterclass and it felt like a baptism of fire…don’t think it will be my last though…

  • JDNS, I hope I haven’t painted it as a ‘destructive experience’ as that suggests it was negative…my response initially was an emotional one, but whilst the feedback was erring on brutal, when I put my ego to one side, much of the advice, both about technical aspects and clarity of the message I couldn’t disagree with. I am hoping it will in the long-run prove to be a constructive experience.
    Tanya, that’s exactly the feelings I went through…and if I’m still going in 50 years from now, I’ll let you know – it’s a good point and I guess reflects his own ambivalence to much contemporary photography of the last ten years, although I don’t want to put words in his mouth…we are a product of our era I guess…
    Anne, you make some very valid points and I can tell you are quite comfortable with ‘criticism’. I have been less exposed to it, or perhaps more truthfully have avoided it. In such a visual medium such as photography, criticism is inevitable and developing a ‘tough skin’ will be part of my development. Detaching oneself from the art you make, when it is such a personal expression is, I think, an art in itself!!

  • There’s a great deal of food for thought in this and your full post Penny, and thank you again for sharing this. I don’t think that an aggressive and challenging style of giving feedback is helpful for many and do think you are responding very well and positively. Of course this way of interacting with the world does fit with the impression of his pictures which reflect a fairly dark vision of the human spirit.
    One thing about what you’ve said puzzles me, and that is his statement that the pictures should stand on their own, with no words of explanation or background. I may be making too much of a comment out of context, but in the real world pictures don’t stand on their own or exist without a hinterland. I might have let this pass with another photographer but one of the things that strikes me about Ballen is how much he has to say about his work. His website has many more written words about his pictures than are on most artists’ sites.

  • Hmmm, I am in no position to rationalise or defend Ballen’s approach at all Eileen…maybe because his work has been misunderstood in the past, it may have been necessary to increase the written content on his site. But thinking it through, I am more inclined to think that the approach he adopted at the masterclass is to ‘critique’ images as a ‘filtering system’ and not necessarily as a mantra for the final delivery of images, if that makes any sense.
    Pure speculation on my part now, but when critiquing his own or others images, by scrutinising the image in isolation, without the luxury of text it becomes a purely visual experience. It removes the temptation to lean too heavily on the ‘non-visual’ aids. So if the image communicates strongly in its own right without any narrative, to then overlay it with supporting text is likely to strengthen it even further…possibly.

  • Thanks Penny. I had wondered if perhaps there was more nuance to the approach in practice. I can see how a purely visual scrutiny might make a good starting point for an analysis – after all, that is always our first and generally most significant impression of a picture – but conducting the whole analysis that way seems rather limited.

  • Penny, I can not help but think that Ballen was doing his job; he could have said nice things but you would have learnt nothing. He has obviously not broken your spirit in fact, he seems to have inspired; I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing.
    To be an artist, one surely needs to drop the many pretensions one is likely to have accumulated about one’s work and rediscover the tabula rasa … !?
    Congratulations for having the bottle to do the Masterclass.

  • Many thanks Penny for sharing this experience. Hard though it may have been I bet you learned a lot. I have had the good fortune to have attended workshops with Steve McCurry, David Alan Harvey and Alex Webb. All had their own style but the common element is that they did not stand back from openly expressing their views – good and mostly bad about my work. In my view this is the only way to learn. It is far better than the approach one sees all too often of sites like Flickr where there are too many compliments and too little honest opinion. Truth to say though Ballen’s opinions are just that, opinions. You don’t have to agree with everything he says but given his experience and reputation one would hope that he does have something to offer.

  • Amano, tabula rasa…thank goodness for google!! And now I know, I can’t disagree with anything you say.
    Keith, this was my first masterclass and I can’t see it being my last, although I suspect each one will be differ enormously. You must see the value in them if you have attended three or more. I did learn a lot…my expectations for the day were quite different but I must admit I think the self-reflection has been invaluable. I can see already how my thinking for future assignments has subtly changed. And I totally agree about flickr comments too…

    • Penny, nice if you are not going to disagree with me but also, please don’t agree with me! I would feel uncomfortable if I thought my views were being accepted without question! And yes, three cheers for the tabula rasa !!!

  • “Any hope of glowing feedback soon evaporated as my pictures were systematically dissected. It wasn’t pretty.” This is exactly how I feel whenever I get an assignment report back from Clive… (just kidding, you know I love your feedback, Clive).
    Well done Penny for being so brave and honest and for documenting and sharing this. Amongst many other things you covered, I am interested in his emphasis on the distracting potential of white – I wasn’t really aware of this until today so will need to do some further investigation.
    I agree how important the self-criticism and self-reflection is though – essential if we are to keep pushing our work to the next level.

  • You know I felt anxiety while reading about your experience……but what really strikes me is one of the ending sentences: “It is this ‘cruel-to-be-kind’ honesty that illustrated to me what is required to transform the images I’m making now in to that of ‘world-class’ pedigree.”.
    Cruel to be kind? required?. It is not only that I do not understand it, it is rather that I do not want to understand it.
    I subscribe Darcy’s point of view above………

    • I think if you had been there, you might have felt differently.
      I presume that the critiques were done in a group and one often learns just as much from seeing other people’s work deconstructed as one’s own.
      However, I remember once when a Magnum photographer looked at some photographs of mine that were being used to promote a tour to India; he commented that I was just trying to advertise the places. I said nothing but since the photographs were made before I was contacted about supplying them for advertising purposes (the series was actually about showing the contrast between old and new architecture in India) his comments seemed rather inappropriate.
      To be honest, if someone critiques my work intelligently, I consider it a kindness; if it is done because that person has a polarised viewpoint it might be considered cruel or perhaps idiotic.

  • Hi Penny.
    I emphasise with you, I too was challenged in all directions when my work was critiqued, but like you I have learnt a very good lesson – keep striving for the perfection of our art.
    Regards.
    Mike.

  • Hi Penny,
    Really brave step and great experience. Thank you for sharing it with us.
    I just wonder if Roger has provided any positive comment (partially, at least) about any of your works?
    On my opinion, verdicts like “Everything is just bad” are truely destructive as they show no way or starting point for improvement. I don’t believe there was nothing like that in your works. It took Roger 50 years to “earn” his mastership. He did make mistakes on his way to it and learned from them. I would expect him to share his experience of finding an idea, a grain if you wish, which can develop into something interesting. Looking for negative sides is never difficult. As a Russian saying puts it: “Everyone can offend an artist”.
    Good luck and best regards,
    Stan.

  • There is a short piece about Masterclasses in the May 2012 BJP
    Basically it says that masterclasses can help with individual projects but one needs to be wary of copying a certain style.
    In my experience, one is not going to get basic instruction but most master photographers will work to help you develop your own style not copy theirs.

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