Upload your photos to arsbeta.com to get real and honest feedback on your photos (double-blind algorithm pairs you and a stranger). Otherwise when you sit down with another photographer (in real life), ask them: “Please help me kill my babies.”

Do you share your photos for feedback, or to have others “like” your photos?

Social media is good to share your photos to get them seen, but useless for getting real and honest feedback on your photos. That is why me and my team created ARS: A new “anti social media” platform for photographers. This is how it works:

1. You upload a photo to arsbeta.com
2. Your photograph is randomly paired with a stranger, who has the option to “keep” or “ditch” your photo, with the option of providing a critique/feedback on your photo.
3. After waiting a few hours, you visit your “Profile” to see the feedback on your photos, as a general barometer of what others think about your photo.

Any feedback or critique is better than no feedback or critique

It is useful to get any feedback on your photos, whether positive or negative. For me the worst is to get NO feedback on my photos!

“I’m not afraid they will say something, I’m afraid they will say nothing.”

Kanye West

I say use the feedback of others to just “test the waters” and see the general sense of what others think of your photos. Use it as a guide, not as truth.

How to get real life feedback on your photos

Most people are nice and won’t tell you what they really think of your photos, especially to your face.

Thus, you must give them permission to be “brutally ruthless” with you.

For example whenever I want someone to give me their real opinion, I will ask them:

“Please help me kill my babies”

Then people will laugh and then tell you what they really think of your photos.

Easier to remove than decide what to add/keep

Also in person, it is generally easier to ask people for their opinion on what weak photos to remove, than which photos are “good”.

Practical ideas on getting feedback on your photos in-person

1. Have a stack of 4×6 prints, and ask your friends or colleagues to divide them into two stacks: a “keep” or “ditch” pile.
2. Have your photos on Dropbox on your iPad or phone (or just stored locally on your laptop or device). Have them look through your photos, and ask them their opinion on your strongest photos, and ask them “why?” to give a deeper rationale.
3. When others are giving you feedback on your photos, don’t call them “my” photos. Call them “the” photos. Remove your ego from your photos! You’re not your photos.

Conclusion

Ultimately you want to shoot for yourself and strive to make photos that impress yourself. Good to get feedback from a small group of people you trust (3 individuals in your inner-circle) than from people whose opinion don’t matter to you.

I encourage you to share your photos to ARSBETA.COM and delight in the experience of both providing feedback on the photos of others, as well as getting feedback on your own photos.

Let us all as a community strive to hustle to take our photography photography to the next level. Photography is an infinitely-expanding pie; let us all thrive together!

ERIC