A Jane of Most Trades

… that sometimes friends are very destructive..

I know that sounds pretty negative, but it’s true. I’m not going to foster the idea that everyone out there is out to crush your dreams or undermine your self confidence because most people aren’t, but sometimes the most well intentioned people can have issues of their own which they then project as constructive criticism.

My friend liked to poke at my photos. I was working with what I had; an older digital camera, sometimes worn down batteries (one of the side effects of sharing a camera with my husband and kids) and limited amounts of daylight in which to take a snap or two.

scarlet handspun silk, photograph taken with my old camera (a free HP camera that came bundled with a printer)

I realized two things after five years of taking this criticism. First, that not once did my friend ever offer up any advice as to how I could improve my photos. Second, that the criticism was growing increasingly negative while my digital photography skills (and cameras) had actually improved quite a bit. Frankly, my photographs were not ever as bad as she made them sound, early photos have a lower resolution as a necessity from when dial-up was the standard.

The final straw was after a particularly nasty bout of constructiveness, she asked my advice on purchasing a new camera. Now if someone has a tragic bad hair cut, who would ask them to recommend a barber? That line of questioning threw me a big hint as to her sincerity when it came to her behavior. When I declared the subject off limits, she huffed “I only want to help!” and then immediately ignored the very broad well defined line that I had drawn in the sand which I then paved and spray painted in neon colors, and built a large monument next to it in order that none would forget. She continued harping. I stopped listening.

Unfortunately, the damage has been done. I think over 5 years I failed to submit dozens upon dozens of craft tutorials, articles, and blog posts because I had missed the natural daylight window by an hour or two, after all, no professional editor (or even dedicated amateur) would want my crappy photos.  I wasted hours trying to take perfect pictures, only to have the best ones declared unfit by one person.

Worse yet, it destroyed our friendship. I learned that I could not trust her.

I have since sold several of those articles, photos and all; and the feedback from the editors has been very positive towards both writing and photos. I now also consider any criticisms internally against a short list of questions before accepting them at face value:

• Is the statement a fair representation of a problem? One example I can think of was when my friend said a particular picture of yarn looked ‘washed out’ in the photo. I actually went around the house bringing up my blog on our different computers and if anything the yarn looked washed out next to the photo on two of the three monitors, whereas it was almost an exact color and tone match on my laptop display. I manually adjusted the white balance and retook the photo, and yet the first photo was (in my estimation, and that of random people I asked) an accurate representation.
• Is the criticism specific and well described? Real and specific adjectives are necessary. My friend declared several images as noisy, to me (and probably to everyone else that has ever owned a camera) this means having visual noise (of which there was none, this was a wide angle shot with nothing in the foreground so everything was crystal freakin’ clear) she grew annoyed with me and started saying that she didn’t know how to describe it, but the photo was just wrong.
• Does the person have an expertise in that particular area? My friend did not, as illustrated above.
• Does this person ever make suggestions to correct a perceived problem? For example, if I show my dad (who is a bit of an expert when it comes to photography) a picture and ask his opinion he’ll give it, and then quickly follow with a bunch of potential solutions to anything he sees as a problem. Whereas my friend did not ever suggest things I might try to fix what she saw as a problem.
• Is the critique something you asked for?

If most of the answers are ‘no’ then I think it’s safe to assume that the criticism is being perpetrated just for the sake of speaking.

When most of the answers are ‘yes’ then it’s probably going to be fair to accept the critique as something helpful.

More important maybe is to consider exposing yourself more to the feedback and critiques from people who are actually helpful and avoiding the rest.