A friend of mine recently posted a question on Facebook that became an interesting topic of discussion. The Facebook discussion is long over but I’ve been pondering it in my own mind. The friend asked, “on a photo outing, would you rather get one 5* image or five-ten 3-4* images?” Predictably, there were opinions on both sides of the question, with most – OK, all – of the responders answering the opposite of me.

My answer was “I agree that the ‘Wow!’ image is the one you always hope for, but those are so dependent on circumstance that you can hardly be disappointed if you don’t come home with one. Plus, what people buy… doesn’t tend to agree with my rating!


If I come home with a handful of ‘3s’ I can say I had a pretty good day, and a solid group of ‘3s’ makes a foundation for a gallery display, a calendar or a book.”

So let’s look at that. First, to know how to answer that question we all need to agree on what a “5 Star” image is, right? I’m guessing we’re pretty much all on the same page, as most of us probably consider 5 stars to be ‘Best of the Best’. I don’t even think about upgrading to 4 or 5 stars until I’ve done extensive processing to my images and have come up with a print that I am happy with. In my mind the tricky part is when we define what images get 3 stars in the first place. Everyone has a workflow that suits them, and I’ve developed some pretty high standards when it comes to giving my images star ratings.

Back when I was shooting film, I considered one “keeper” per roll of film to be good shooting. The number might have been a little higher with 35mm and 36 exposures on a roll, but when I was using 220 film and getting 20 images on a roll, one keeper per roll was my goal. Not that the others were bad, but I’ve found that there is always one shot that best captured my intentions with a particular subject or scene, and that was my “keeper.” I kept all of my film except the absolute bad ones, but marked the keeper as the one that I would have printed, sent to a magazine or (later) scanned into a digital file for the computer. I didn’t worry about star ratings then because there wasn’t really a need to.

Now that I am using digital cameras I don’t measure my images by rolls of film. I measure them in Gigabytes – dozens and perhaps hundreds of shots from a particular scene or subject. Does shooting more photographs mean I have more keepers? Hardly. The number of keepers – now we call them “Picks” – is perhaps a little higher, but as a percentage of the total it is much, much lower. I have become a ruthless editor. In a day where I shoot 500 photos, I might initially end up with 50 or so Picks, but once I go through them and narrow it down to the very best ones I might end up with 8 or 10 that get the 3 Star rating. There’s no reason to have 20 keepers from a sunrise or sunset, for example, when there are one or two that captured the peak moment. You might select a few more than that if you captured some variety, or shot verticals and horizontals, and then only if it was really something special.

I’m picking on sunrises and sunsets here, but I’m hoping to make a point. A lot of folks trudge out hours before dawn, shoot until the sun comes up then go eat breakfast. In the evening we grab dinner or a glass of wine just about the time things are getting interesting, then head out to our favorite spot just in time to see the ball of the sun disappear into an overcast sky or have the clouds move in just before the “magic moment.” There’s a lot to shoot besides the sun, and shooting the sun makes for some boring pictures more often than not. And when you’re standing at an overlook with 20 of your closest friends, cameras all pointed in the same direction waiting until the magic moment, you’re certainly not going to get anything different!

Truthfully, a lot of my sunrises and sunsets don’t even get picked unless they are better than something I already have. Not that I have a “been there done that” attitude but unless they are spectacular, sunrises are generally pretty cliché. I truly have some pretty good sunrises and sunsets already, and unless something is really different or a lot better than what I have I’m probably better off looking for something else. Hopefully, if I am really paying attention and thinking about what I’m doing, I’m looking for other things to shoot instead of waiting for a boring sunset to turn into something special. That’s where the 3s come from. Look for something that is enhanced by the nice light, or find something interesting and see what I can make of that.

But I digress. The thing I find interesting is that my definition of a 5 star rating changes constantly. I have my All Time Favorites, but periodically I go back, move all my 4 and 5 star images back to 3 stars and re-rate the whole batch. That forces me to re-look objectively at each one of them to confirm that it does or does not meet my 4 star criteria. Most recently I have begun to re-process old files with new software and am surprised at the differences I see. Usually the difference is for the better as the newer software allows me to get even more out of my older files. But often I’ll find an image that I thought was excellent that isn’t, and it stays a 3 or gets deleted. More often than not I start over and re-process the RAW file and delete the old PSD file that was processed in Elements or an older version of Photoshop.

This discussion has been a great exercise and I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and the more I think about it the more I stand by my original response. A good solid group of ‘3s’ means I had a productive outing, that I was seeing well, inspired and creative. If I come back from an outing with a 5 star image I consider myself lucky. If I come back from an image with NO 3 star images I was either uninspired, lazy or not working very hard. To become the photographer I want to be it’s far more important to consistently come home with 3s than to come home with no 3s and a 5. The ideal situation would be to come home with some of each. Once in a while that happens, and when it does it is very, very nice!

Photo is one of those lousy “3-star” images from a trip to Hooker Falls in Dupont State Forest last October. It’s got a pretty good shot at getting a promotion, I think.

One of the things that often puzzles aspiring photographers of all skill levels, from absolute beginners to experienced amateurs and professionals, is the question of knowing how “good” their images are and how to make them better. As great as most experienced photographers are with sharing information about equipment, technique and locations, it is very difficult for photographers to get direct and specific feedback on improving their work.

I think one of the biggest challenges may be that we don’t know what kind of advice to ask for.

For a photographer trying to improve and learn, what to do? Maybe you could start posting to online forums, participate in a critique session, or attend a workshop. Each of these choices has its own benefits, and it’s possible to get a good foundation from a workshop. Even before that, though, you need to have an idea what it is you are trying to accomplish. What are you trying to learn, and who is best suited to help you do that?

Before taking a workshop or participating in a critique session, the place to start is to evaluate your own images. What kind of photographs do you take? Which ones do you like? Do they look like what you intended? Have you captured whatever it was that attracted you and caused you to press the shutter button? Why or why not? What do YOU like about your images, and what do YOU see in your images that need improvement? What matters most is YOUR vision, not someone else’s interpretation of your image. Once a photographer has evaluated his own images and edited them based on his own intentions, only then can they be properly evaluated by others.

Eventually you will want to present your work to others, to get feedback, advice and suggestions. Don’t be afraid of this, but also be clear what kind of feedback you are looking for. This is important, as it helps you determine where and how to present your work.

The easiest and perhaps most common approach today is the online image critique. This can be as informal as posting images to Flickr or Facebook and getting comments. It can be an individual image critique forum such as the CNPA message boards, or you can submit to a formal review group or forum such as those offered by PPA and other organizations. When participating in online image critiques it is important to know who is going to be doing the critiques. Who are the critiquers, what are their qualifications? Are they professionals, beginners or someone in between? Are they people whose goals and vision are similar to your own, or are they just people looking for “atta-boys” and meaningless platitudes for their own work and who spend their time doing the same for others? Are they “pixel peepers” who will ignore an image with beautiful composition or wonderful light because maybe it isn’t critically sharp or optimally processed? Make sure you are showing your work to people whose opinions you would most want, and remember that a lot of people who post and comment to online forums are people whose hobby is commenting and posting to online forums. Photographers whose opinions you might value most might not spend a lot of time online because they are out taking photographs.

Group critiques are popular, as they tend to be “live,” with a known speaker or presenter who is recognized as having expertise in the field. While these types of sessions have some value, there are many factors that can limit their usefulness. Factors such as limited time, volume of images and technology issues such as a projector that does not properly show the images can limit the effectiveness of such sessions. Also, when someone is looking at images one at a time, the feedback often tends to be based on “rules” and often doesn’t involve input from the photographer. A good review will take the photographer’s intent into account – what are you trying to show and how well did you accomplish it?

Recently I have started to become more comfortable with my technical ability and have started to explore a more artistic approach to my photography. One of the areas that I wanted help with was the choices I make when editing my photographs (NOTE: by editing I am referring to the selection of images to keep or work on further. Processing refers to the optimization in software, or “developing” the images). I recently took a workshop with a photographer whose work and teaching style I admire, and as part of the process we arranged a follow-up meeting to review the images I made while on the workshop. It hasn’t happened as of the time of this article, but my goal is for us to review the work I did, evaluate the decisions I made about which images best suited my intent, and get his feedback on my post-processing. Yes, I’m paying extra for his time, but I feel that the extra effort to “complete the circle” will be worth it.

Another area I have been working on is doing my own printing. The way to get feedback on printing is to have someone actually look at your prints, so I have been working with a local master printer to get ongoing feedback to help me come up with better output. A trained eye is far better at seeing subtle differences that, once seen, make a huge difference in the impact of a print. Again, I’m paying for the advice, but I am getting a lot of efficiency by having exclusive access to this person, rather than trying to wedge in time during his studio hours or during a hectic workshop.

There are a number of things to consider and look for when deciding about learning opportunities. Decide what it is you are trying to accomplish. Establish goals and get specific feedback. Look at the activity on a forum or in a critique group and see what kind of images people are showing, what kind of feedback they are getting and whether you think it would work for you. Talk to a potential workshop leader or instructor to discuss your needs and to determine if and how he or she can help you. It might require more effort, it will probably cost some money and will definitely take time, but the payoff will be in terms of meaningful and specific feedback to help solve problems you have or answer your questions.