Feedback is Your Friend
“To be early is to be on time. To be on time is to be late. To be late is unacceptable.”
Throughout my career in high school theater and music programs, this was the mantra drilled into my brain. When Mr. Marczak tells you that rehearsal begins at 7:30am, you better be ready to go at least fifteen minutes early. Those who are not ready, those who do not take their commitment to the time of their classmates and the production seriously, would find their participation level involuntarily changing.
No person learned this lesson harder than Tricia, a friend of mine who was late once to rehearsal for the school play and found herself handing off the lead role of the musical to another student - me. Kudos to Tricia, though. She showed up early for every rehearsal from that day forward, despite being downgraded to the non-speaking background role of “Townsperson Five.”
Cold air plunging in and out of my lungs, I finally walk up to the main door at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design. A glance at my watch tells me I’m a solid 30 minutes early for my portfolio reviews. Once inside, I can see that I’m not the only person who had a Mr. Marczak in their lives. There are at least 35 other photographers who have arrived early for their reviews, too.
My annual pilgrimage to Washington D.C. each spring to meet with photo editors and have my portfolio reviewed is as essential to my photography career as my camera. It’s one part of a larger ongoing feedback loop that helps me look at my photography more objectively, continue to refine my photographic style, push my visual storytelling to new levels, and become a better, more thoughtful wildlife photographer overall.
This isn’t the first, or second, or even third time I’ve sat for reviews with editors at National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, CNN Travel, and dozens more. My nerves would have you think otherwise; it’s barely 10-degrees outside and I’ve nearly sweated through my shirt.
A photography portfolio review is not that dissimilar to a performance review at any other job. You sit down, show your work to the reviewer, and are then usually served a ”compliment sandwich.” You’re given a compliment about one thing, served up some criticism over another, and then provided with another compliment. A neat little piece of feedback sandwiched between two compliments.
With a portfolio review, however, it isn’t just the quality of your work that’s being reviewed. It’s also an assessment to determine whether or not your work and style are a fit for the magazine or publication. If you’ve never worked with that editor before, it’s an introduction to what you’re capable of with subjects that interest you. And spoiler alert: the photos you think are your best are almost always never the ones the reviewer thinks are your best.
It’s an entirely subjective review. My first review that day, with an editor from CNN Travel, was terrible. They had swapped in a different editor than the one I had prepared to meet with, so my photo selections were all wrong. This editor didn’t come right out and say it, but it was clear that she and I were not a creative fit. I felt like the world's most inept photographer.
Nothing in my portfolio meshed with the esthetic of the sections for which she buys photos. My style was too “moody” and subtle compared to the vibrant and energetic photography she tends to favor. My portfolio showcased a couple of my international photo essays, but her section focuses primarily on North American stories. It was not the first impression I was going for.
Not all was lost, however. She works with the editor I was originally supposed to meet with and agreed my work would be much better suited to their section, encouraging me to write an email pitch to that person with my story - but not until I rearrange my photo essay in the way she recommended.
The next editor I met with, a digital features editor for National Geographic, absolutely loved the portfolio and project I shared with her. She enthusiastically invited me to share the entire gallery with her via email and while my story was eventually “killed” (that’s the industry term for having something they were interested in not being published after all), we still talk regularly and have developed a great working relationship.
Jared and I have been photographing alongside one another for over a year now and each and every time we’re in the field, we still sit down and have a post mortem for the day — what worked well, what didn’t work so well, what we may change about our approach next time.
Despite working together and photographing the same subjects in the same setting, our photographic styles and approaches are quite different. The final image I see when I look through my viewfinder is often nothing like the image Jared sets out to making whilst looking through his. What is photography, after all, if not the art of sharing /how/ you see more than /what/ you see?
Naturally, I value his feedback and he values mine - we work together. Because our styles are different, he sees things in my work that I may not have considered and vice versa. Being vulnerable and being willing to hear constructive feedback has made me a better photographer thousands-fold.
Likewise, I seek out creative feedback from others, too. Social media “likes” and “loves” from our friends and family (and the general public) are great, but they aren’t the type of feedback that helps us grow as artists. Gratuitous “oooh that’s awesome,” is also not actual feedback. It doesn’t do anything but soothe our egos.
So what is good feedback and where do you get it? Outside of meeting with editors or reviewers, I often ask other wildlife photographers I respect to review my work. They understand the circumstances in which I’m working and can give me some thoughts based on their own experience in similar situations.
I also talk with graphic designers and magazine layout designers. Why? They’re a big part of my target market for my business. They’re the ones who license my work for their work. A designer I worked with on a handful of magazine assignments once told me, “Annalise, I love when I get photos from you because you always give me plenty of negative space to work with and you always give me vertical and horizontal options.”
A photo editor I have worked with quite a bit told me that my images are always solid, but she especially loves when she gets photos that very clearly show they are “Annalise’s photos.” When I pressed her for what she means, she said, “I can tell when you’re too in your head about satisfying the requirements of the assignment. When I assign you something, it’s because I know that you and the way you see this work best for what I need from it. So don’t just give me photos that check the boxes. Give me photos that show me how Annalise sees this story.”
It was great feedback because she was specific about what she saw as the issue and she gave me “permission” to be myself as a photographer and artist. As I mulled over what she said, I realized that I am often “in my head” when I’m doing work for someone. I don’t think I will ever stop worrying about whether or not I nail a photo assignment, but I have relaxed a bit more and have given myself permission to tackle it the way I best see fit. That alone has done wonders for my creativity.
One time while we were photographing birds, Jared once told me that I should consider punching up my saturation a bit more, especially with my stock photography and for social media. As a photojournalist, I don’t often get a chance to do much to my images other than color correct the white balance and maybe adjust the crop. The majority of the editors I work with require me to submit images without any modifications beyond those. If they want to adjust saturation, they’ll do so.
I started playing with my color saturation a bit more and wouldn’t you know it, I started seeing what Jared was seeing. From that moment forward, this feedback really impacted my work in a positive way. I pay much more attention to how a little bit more color here and there can really bring to life so many of my images.
This isn’t to say that I always take every piece of feedback and start implementing it in my work. I don’t want my photography to be a patchwork quilt of others’ thoughts and ideas, after all. But I do consider each piece of feedback thoughtfully. Sometimes I’ve tried a few things that were suggested and it didn’t feel authentic to me as a photographer, so I decided to not take that advice. That’s okay, too.
You may not be at a point in your journey in the business of wildlife photography to be invited to sit through reviews with magazine editors, but asking for feedback of your work from those who are qualified to give it is valuable regardless.
I often seek out opinions from friends in creative fields, too, like video producers, painters, interior designers, ad agency friends, etc. I purposely look for people who are not going to stroke my ego, but who also understand the value of creative feedback and will review my work with the intent on helping me become a better photographer and artist. In turn, I do the same for them.
I could have easily been upset or offended that my work didn't resonate with the editor from CNN I met with during my portfolio review in Washington. She didn't love it, she didn't hate it. But I can't think of anything I hate more than the idea of being a photographer whose work is labeled as "just fine."
Yet, because I owned my responsibility to accept feedback with an open mind, I wasn't defensive about what she perceived to be shortcomings in my work. Instead, I saw them as opportunities to tweak my work for her colleague. And, as a result, I not only sold my photo essay to the editor I was originally supposed to meet - I sold them the video I produced to go alongside it as well.