Snow Day Thoughts: The Importance (and Fear) of Getting Feedback

I’m drafting this post in the early afternoon of March 23, watching the snow continue to pile up outside my living room. We’re already over a foot and it looks like we’re not even at halftime. Winter has been weird, and this isn’t what I was planning to write about. Nope. Instead of this current scene I was supposed to be in Boston watching one of my favorite bands, Junius, play a one-off gig at Faces Brewing. Some musings on my love for music and concert photography would have followed. Well, I made the decision to move to the mountains, and for all the great things this beautiful environment offers, the reminders of the inconveniences of the more extreme weather come regularly. All good, we’ll just talk about something else!

One of my goals for 2024 was to be more active (more public?) in the photography community. You know what I mean. More than a sporadic Instagram account, submissions to the same couple of photo contests each year… and that’s about it actually. I’ve always tried to consume photography content consistently - blogs, videos, and so on - in the spirit of continued learning. But instead of primarily being a consumer, what tangible things could I do to be more involved in the photography internet community, or better yet to get more of my own photography out there? And yes, understanding and dealing with the intimidating concept of submitting your work to public feedback.

Well, obviously, this website was one step. Instagram is going downhill anyway, and this is a nice platform to curate stuff a little better. But obviously a website won’t do a ton on its own in terms of… anything. So, what else? I could, and did, join some online blog communities like Photography Life. Weekly photo challenges, for example, have been a good way to quickly engage in something with a minimal time commitment. Yet, in a similar way, you tend to get out of that stuff what you put into it - and it’s been a challenge committing the time to fully engage regularly and know what exactly to engage with. Still though, I’m pleased that I’ve at least got the ball rolling with those two things, both of which mostly mark new territory for me. And considering my desire to be away from my desk as much as possible… they aren’t insignificant steps. Beyond that, I don’t know about anybody else, but there are a couple of photographers I like to follow, and I only discovered them through their YouTube channels, Nigel Danson being my favorite. His style stands out to me, especially his woodland work, and just the way he talks about his photographic process is something I relate to and can easily learn from. So when he made his most recent call for photo submissions for a video critique I said screw it and decided to share one…

To be honest I don’t know why this was the photo I submitted. It isn’t my favorite, nor do I think it’s objectively my best from that trip, but it was already in my Lightroom library and in that moment I happened to connect with it - the shape of the trees, the winding path between them, and the memory attached to it obviously. And, bluntly, I assumed there was zero chance he would actually choose it to talk about, so why should I overthink what I submitted? Well, pick it he did. Go figure.

So many emotions happened when I logged in that Monday morning to watch his latest video and saw this photo in the timeline. First, obviously excitement. Holy crap he grabbed one of my photos - he must like it! And then after a few more sips of coffee… actually, no. This is a critique video. He must hate it! It’s also worth noting that I can’t even remember the last time my work received any kind of feedback, if ever. So fear was under the surface the entire time regardless. And this photo certainly received some constructive feedback, all of which was presented politely and helpfully. The path between the trees is good, the lack of a light source in the sky is a plus, but it’s a busy photo with too much distraction, specifically the canyon walls. That’s where it falls. Perhaps I could have returned to the spot at another time and recomposed with different light. Honestly, there were a lot of amazing photos he chose to share, and this was not one of them. At first, I was disappointed, and definitely humbled, that my favorite photographer found more weaknesses than strengths in one of my published photos… at least it felt that way.

My reaction, and thought process, did shift after the dust of the initial reaction settled. There were a number of factors to consider here. This wasn’t a composed photo, it was a snapshot at the end of a long hike with exactly zero thought given to any part of the composition beyond, quite literally, the path before me. More importantly, I ultimately found it to be an incredibly helpful experience when all was said and done. Truthfully, if anybody else took this photo and showed it to me, I would likely have the reacted the same way - cool scene, but a little busy. There was tangible feedback that I will now carry with me and apply whenever I am out with my camera going forward. For instance, instead of worrying about including every branch of the tree in front of me, look beyond the subject and decide if what lies behind it adds or takes away from the scene, and emotion, I’m trying to capture. Dedicate more time to… timing. Snapshots are great, but I easily could have returned to this spot later in the day and captured the scene I wanted to.

The most important thing I took away from this lies in those last three words: “if I wanted to”. When you receive feedback there are really two choices: You can get defensive, make excuses, and continue on with absolutely no changes in your process. Or, if you actually want to get better at something, you can absorb it and use it as motivation to get out more. Start practicing with it, if you will. My reaction in those first few hours after watching the video was more of the former, and it really made me pause and think about what I was doing with photography is the more general sense. But as time went on and I kept thinking about Nigel’s thoughts, my attitude very steadily transitioned to one of appreciation and, frankly, excitement. Excitement to get out there and continue to grow.

Let’s face it. It’s hard to improve if you don’t have any sense of where or how to improve. In a short video segment, this gave me that. It also stripped away a lot of my fear of seeking feedback - no better way to do that than have your work discussed by your favorite photography publicly to almost 500,000 subscribers. And on top of all of that, it all happened on a platform where I couldn’t counter his points, I couldn’t get defensive, and I couldn’t explain the situation. This is important. I was left with only his words, and my thoughts, and how I would let them evolve over time.

And now that the snow is starting to let up, I think I’ll pack my bag and set a rare Sunday morning alarm.