Photo critique is hurting your photography

Photography critiques are supposed to help us grow. That’s what everyone says. Post your work, get feedback, and improve. But what if the opposite is true? 

What if critiques are actually harming your photography?

Here’s the problem: critiques push you toward conformity. Whether it’s a panel of judges, an online forum, or a well-meaning friend, feedback is often laced with personal bias. Someone tells you the lighting is wrong because it’s not what they would have done. Another says the composition is weak because it doesn’t follow a rule. Suddenly, you start questioning your instincts. The photo that once spoke to you now seems flawed. Why? Because someone else said so.

Photography isn’t about pleasing a crowd. The best images—the ones that last—aren’t born from committee approval. They come from instinct, emotion, and risk-taking. Yet, critiques push you in the opposite direction. They train you to seek validation rather than expression. You start shooting with the critic’s voice in your head, worrying about technical perfection instead of raw impact. And in that process, something dies: your personal vision.

The irony? Many of the photographers we admire today would have been torn apart in a modern critique session. Think about the grain in Robert Capa’s war images. The blur in Saul Leiter’s street photography. The high contrast of Daido Moriyama’s work. By conventional critique standards, these are “mistakes.” But in reality, they are defining choices that make the work unforgettable.

Critiques don’t make you better—they make you safer. They mold you into an average photographer, one who knows all the rules and follows them well. But safe photography is forgettable photography. If you want to grow, forget about critique. Trust your instincts, experiment relentlessly, and let your work evolve on your terms. Because in the end, the only opinion that truly matters is yours.

This issue ties into a larger problem with modern photo culture. We live in an era where social media algorithms and online engagement dictate what is seen and valued. The photos that get the most likes aren’t necessarily the most compelling—they’re often the most digestible, the ones that fit neatly into an existing trend. This creates an echo chamber where originality takes a back seat to popularity, and where photographers feel pressured to shoot what they know will perform well rather than what truly moves them.

A photographer’s personal photo culture doesn’t form in isolation. It’s shaped by what they consume, the photographers they admire, and the creative influences they surround themselves with. From early inspirations in books or exhibitions to the social media feeds they scroll through daily, all of these elements contribute to their artistic perspective. Over time, these inputs influence what they consider “good” photography—sometimes without realizing it. The danger is that if most of these influences come from mainstream, critique-driven spaces, it can limit rather than expand creative thinking.

As a result, photography is becoming increasingly homogenized. The obsession with perfection, technical mastery, and social approval stifles the raw, imperfect, and deeply personal elements that make images powerful. The more we cater to critique and approval, the less room we leave for experimentation, failure, and artistic breakthroughs. Photography culture should be about pushing boundaries, not reinforcing them.