the heel press

November 04, 2007 - 12:11 PM

I was wondering how each of us decides what is creative, what it is we like in a photograph, painting or drawing, what makes the difference between exceptional, good, and bad. I know from my own experience since joining and lurking on a variety of sites where people can submit their work for public comment that some seem to be able to dissassociate their tastes from the content of the piece of work, while others seem to judge based on what they personally like in terms of subject matter (usually along what they themselves would base their work on), and others which I think of as almost bordering on snobbery by not considering anything which they deem as common as being worth their time or respect. LOL, I find this latter group amusing when they make comments such as 'I have seen so many photos/paintings of xyz' or 'not my thing' with the inference it then cannot be worthy of consideration, because basically what is there in this world left to include in a piece of art which has not already been done right down to refuse and dead animals? And of course this is not to mention some of the subjects often considered not worth a blip on the screen are seen everyday in books, advertising, art, websites etc., and so have a use and somewhere are seen as having value.

So for me I usually try and divorce my personal taste from the subject matter and look more at the quality of the work, which once again is often subjective. If I can't do this I will bypass it. I try and look at the quality of any piece of art, even if it doesn't appeal personally. What do others use as a criteria for judging pieces of art such as in the critique panel or rating options available here? What criteria do you like your own work judged on? What do you think of as creative?