29/07/2026
I regularly put my photography through judging and critiquing as part of a constant cycle of learning. Sometimes I walk away with something genuinely useful. Most of the time I walk away with a judges biases. Either way it reinforces my philosophy that every critique is one of two things - you either learn something useful, or it tests your resolve as a creative.
I recently had this image from Bab Mehrouk in Fes critiqued. The feedback? I should have used a longer exposure to remove the people. The 822 year old gate was over sharpened. The highlights could have been better balanced if I had shot it as an HDR.
Here is the thing. Every element of how I shot and edited this image was a deliberate creative choice.
It is a live scene. I wanted the motion of the people. The photo IS an HDR - so the mansplaining about how I should have done it that way, was redundant. And the so called over sharpening of the wall where the judge spotted what he thought were artifacts? Well, I will let you decide how smooth an 822 year old wall should actually look.
Sometimes the critique tells you more about the judge than it does about the image. What do you guys think?
