sbs99;
I see you finally figured out who I am
Zero comments is not always a sign that a shot is a failure, I had as you well know a few shots on other forums where there were zero comments, and I put that down to people not feeling qualified to critique a work.
Turning out dud shots happens to all of us, regardless off experience level and time spent behind the lens. I still turn out shots that are bad, but only when experimenting with new techniques in my own time.
You are missing the crux of my arguement though, and that is that there is a movement that is permeating photography that produces low quality work by any standard and then tries to pass it off as being 'artistic' and thus worthy of serious merit.
A good example of this level and type of artistic integrity was at the Tate in London last year, where a well known installation artist passed off a pile of human fecaes as art. Crap is crap no matter how you look at it, and they hid their lack of talent behind a longwinded story about the 'inner meaning' of the piece which frankly didn't hold water under scrutiny. Sadly this sort of cynical con job is becoming rife in photography and brings in to question the validity of such works.
denizenx;
Sorry I didn't see the ST awards as am not in Singapore, however they couldn't have been any worse than many other 'award' type entrant lists that I've seen over the years.
Stereotypes or not, crap is crap which ever way you look at it.
Flare:
Hate to say this but 99% of professional photo editors I know would can that shot of yours and ask for a reshoot. The only exception being a couple weekend magazine (newspaper insert) editors who could find a use for that shot as a 'column filler' in an article.
Kit:
I've shot images that were anything but 'pretty' whose content was stark, shocking, and sometimes sickening, for example; Wildlife coated in oil from oil tanker spills, piles of dead and rotting marine life from toxic waste dumped in rivers, people covered in blood after riots, drug addicts shooting up heroin, accident victims and street kids living in sewers. None of this material was lightweight pretty 'art' photography.
As to how to judge the worth of another photgraphers work, it's neither simple nor easy, however the standard judging techniques used in high level competitions such as the Nikon Awards are that the image be technically competent, the image have a story to tell and that the image be 'focused' on a central theme.
These criteria can be met by any number of methods including leading the viewer to the subject by the use of pointers etc. However any image that requires a spiel to get it's point across (as in why I took this masterwork etc) generally gets canned in competitions judged by photographers as photography is a visual art, where the final image of critical importance.
In other words the shot must be a free standing entity with a story to tell, which is different from the judging criteria often applied to other 'art' where the story behind the work is often more important than the piece itself. Hence the referal to 'con job' in my original post.
Ninja:
Your post sums up nicely the problem with a lot of photographers. Namely, they don't have the basics mastered and without the basics any futher real development or originality is seriously hindered due to the fact that the photographer cannot convert their conception to a final form.
Rueyloon;
sorry to say this but this is not aimed at you, you're far to insignificant to warrent such an expenditure of my time.
General to all
Some are missing my point, which is not to dispute the fact that art is indeed subjective and often highly personal, but rather that there are a growning number of so called 'artists' who are passing of second rate work as being first quality work.
