Free Image Reviews

I think one of the best ways we have to improve our photography to get serious about what we’ve done well in the past and even more serious about what we’d like to do better with our photography in the future. These are the two objectives that we try to achieve during the image review sessions of my workshops. I’m happy to be able to say that these sessions are often among the workshop experiences participants report valuing the most. It has often occurred to me that we don’t need to be in a workshop to get value from an image review.

As I’ve been forced to cancel workshops because of the Covid-19 virus I’d like to see if we can make image reviews part of our everyday photo life. Thus, I’m offering FREE image reviews to readers of my newsletter, subscribers to f/8 Insights, and alumni of my workshops.

We need to keep two primary things in mind:

First: An important part of any worthwhile image review is recognition of what we like about our image. In other words, what do we think we have done well?

Second: What do we want to do differently the next time we’re out behind our tripods?

In both cases, it’s helpful to try and answer the question, “Why?”

There’s a third thought that I think we need to mention, too. It’s this. Productive image reviews (often called critiques) aren’t about finding fault with what’s been done. To my knowledge, I’ve never had anyone leave an image review session feeling down in the dumps about their photography. Quite the contrary. The comments I repeatedly hear are more about how valuable the time spent in the review session was. Most often, folks are anxious to get out in the field with their camera as quickly as possible.

With the preceding as a preface . . .

Here’s what I’m offering. Quite simply, FREE, one-on-one image reviews for f/8 Insights subscribers and alumni of my workshop and other readers of my newsletter.

How this going to work? Let’s keep to simple. Anyone who would like a free image review will simply upload their image(s) to DropBox using this email address: [email protected]. As quickly as I can, I will review it and send it back to you. More info on using DropBox may be found at https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/share/share-with-others

What format should the photo be in?  Ideally, the photo you send for review should be in the RAW format. Photos in JPEG or TIF format may be sent as well, however, these formats pretty much limit reviews to composition, whereas RAW files will allow suggestions that include post-capture processing considerations, too.

How fast will you get your review? That’s a tough question, since I don’t know how many images I’m going to receive for review. As we get started I going to try to get reviews back to people within a couple of days . . . a week at the most. One final thought. I have no idea how many people will choose to have images reviewed, nor can I anticipate how the reviews will be received. So, how long I’ll be able to offer these image reviews is up in the air or how many reviews I will be able to complete. Let’s give it a go.

If you have questions, ideas or suggestions about how to proceed,  please feel free to email them to me at [email protected].