Joe McNally (a must-read in your RSS feed if you don’t already have it) made a comment the other day about how people on the intarwebs throw out the “awesome shot, dude” comment far too often. He’s right, and it’s something most of us have probably noticed.

Here’s the situation: you throw a photo out there, and anywhere from one to a thousand folks might say “that’s awesome” (or similar). Is it really, though? When it comes down to it, most photography is tepid at best – absolutely mediocre. My own work included.

I would like to proffer a different interpretation of those comments, however: they are more like votes than the literal “awesome” description in the statements. The more comments you get, the more awesome that picture likely was.

That’s really the point: no one will be honest (being rude marks you as a troll, so you get banned & blocked, losing your voice. Being nice is OK, but if you have nothing good to say… better to say nothing.

So if you have a photo, the real point is to take a look at how quickly people respond to it, how many, and what type.

After reading over these (sloppy) musings, I would add: this is typical of commentary from non-professionals.  These are actual consumers of much art, and I’m not sure that I’d necessarily dismiss their opinions outright.