The Compelling Image portfolio review with Ami Vitale

For those of you that think this blog is an interview with Ami Vitale or a review of Ami Vitale’s wonderful portfolio, I am sorry to disappoint. If you do want to listen to an outstanding interview with this great photographer then download Matt Brandon’s – aka The Digital Trekker’s – excellent Depth of Field interview with Ami here.

If Ami’s portfolio is what you are after then visit her website, www.amivitale.com. It would be inappropriate let alone presumptuous for someone of my meager photographic talents to comment on Ami’s photographs. Many far more qualified than I have earmarked her as one of the truly outstanding photographic talents of her generation and I suspect the world is a better place for having someone of Ami’s skill, compassion and empathy using their visual story telling capabilities to help others.

So I am going to tackle this in two parts – the first part is this post about my experience and the process of having 10 of my recent images reviewed by Ami. The second part  - a series of 3-4 shorter posts – will each cover one of the key themes and detailed feedback, together with the ideas and suggestions that Ami gave me – which I think that others on similar “journeys” of photographic discovery may find helpful, re-assuring or even encouraging.

Booking the time with Ami was something that I orchestrated through the website, The Compelling Image for a cost of $160 – which I think is incredible value and, dare I say it given the time I had with Ami and the benefits I gained, is too cheap! For those of you wanting to take an online course in photography, then do look at “The Compelling Image” – they have some truly outstanding professionals providing you with individual tuition, assignments and critiques for a very reasonable price. You can find out more about all of their courses, including the option to have Ami Vitale review your work, at www.thecompellingimage.com.

Anyway back to the review. I have to say it felt pretty nerve racking. Like many photographers I have that weird mix of wanting to share my images so that people can see them, but also nagging self-doubt that they are really good enough. You can imagine therefore my angst at having to submit 10 images to be formally critiqued by someone of Ami’s standard, even though I knew by her reputation that Ami, of all people, would provide incredible objective insight, advice and encouragement.

The first challenge was selecting which 10 images to submit. Now that sounds very arrogant – I don’t mean that I had so many great images to chose from that I struggled to sort the “chaff from the wheat”. Far from it. In my case I have so much chaff, that I struggled to find the wheat!  But obviously you want to show both your potential and also perhaps examples of where you are seeking guidance – the aim after all of such a review is to learn from somebody that you respect and whose work you acknowledge as being the type of quality that you aspire to achieve at some stage on your own photographic journey. I was conscious too that the images I selected would of course shape the discussion. Obvious when said like that, but I can’t tell you how long I spent wondering which ones to select – even taking advice from a couple of photography buddies to help me be objective about it! You can see the 10 images that I selected for review in the slideshow above and if you want to browse my other images then you can review those in my gallery.

The mechanics of the review are very straightforward. You select on the “The Compelling Image” website from a range of pre-ordained dates, when you want the review to happen; you pay your money, and on that day, the “course” is enabled for you. Once enabled you upload your images via the TCI website where you also have the opportunity to attach a commentary about each picture – why you had taken it, what you were trying to achieve, what you thought worked and what you thought didn’t etc.

Within hours of enrolling on the course – even though the course was still a few days off – Ami had been in touch by email. She wanted to know my background, my motivations my interests and then she wanted to arrange to have a chat with me via Skype on the day of the course (it is technically a one day course).

Ami could not have been more gracious or delightful. Full of ideas, full of encouragement and full of support, she began by seeking understanding about each image – Why had I chosen to submit this image? What did it mean for me? Why had I composed it that way? What other angles/viewpoints had I considered and why?  How many frames had I shot? How longed had I spent thinking about the image before shooting it? She had clearly prepared thoroughly for our call because as we discussed each image, Ami delivered real insight and the benefit of her extensive experience in identifying what is was that she liked or where there were areas she wanted clarification over.

Some images that I thought were my strongest, she liked, but usually Ami felt that they were missing something, or could have been better! Other images which I just liked, she loved – and for quite different reasons from me. As we went through each of the images, we kept returning to a number of dominant themes, but I am going to save those details and the specific critique for my next post. But at no stage was this dispiriting. Gavin Gough shared with me that “critiquing somebody’s photographs is only slightly less hazardous than offering thoughts on the perceived beauty of their children in my experience. It’s easy to offer praise alone and that’s often what reviewers resort to – or they go to the other end of the scale and pick things apart without offering encouragement”.

I can’t amplify sufficiently how productive, enjoyable and without being too over the top, humbling the whole review process with Ami was. It was just terrific fun. But of course it was also much more than that. It was incredibly focused, balanced between praise and constructive criticism, positive, helpful and motivating. Ami’s great skill is in simplifying things – helping the complex seem straightforward, removing the mental barriers that are blocking your ability to advance, and leaving you more reflective, upbeat and ready to go.  She makes you see things is an uncluttered and objective way, that as soon as she says them just seem so obvious that you kick yourself for making everything that went before so complicated. In just one hour I came away already thinking differently, motivated to just go and try new things and inspired by the opportunities that were now in front of me, yet also aware of what I should not repeat or get frustrated by.

Mentoring at its best, then. In terms of developing my photography I suspect I shall look back on this process as one of those seminal moments where I felt I had made a step change.

Like many who have met or know Ami – even virtually as I did – you realize that you have just spent time with someone very special.  There is an inner calm, a compassion and a genuine warmth in the interest she displays in you and your photographs that is all too rare these days. I too have joined the rapidly increasing Ami Vitale fan base!

Ami has kindly allowed me to share with you her comments and feedback. My next post will cover one of the key themes we discussed, using one of the images together with the comments I made as part of the submission process, and more interestingly, the critique that I received from Ami.

Please help and spread the word by clicking on the share button below, retweeting, facebook updates etc. And if you haven’t already done so, lose yourself for a few hours and get inspired by visiting Ami’s portfolio.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Workshops and tagged with Ami Vitale, Digital Trekker, Matt Brandon, Portfolio review, The Compelling Image. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.