Want to understand and learn from a professional photographer how your image(s) comes across, can be improved, or a new technique to make them unique?

WHO IS JEFF SCHULTZ? — Jeff Schultz has been a full-time professional photographer in Anchorage since 1982. He’s been official the time for the Iditarod for 40 years. He started the stock photo agency Alaska Stock Images in 1991 and wrap for 22 years before selling it. His work has been published worldwide in books, magazines, brochures, advertisements and more. Jeff conducts photo tours and workshops in Alaska and publishes an Alaska calendar along with several books.

Jeff offers private image critique/portfolio reviews as a service via a live zoom call, for a fee, on his website. Read more here: https://www.schultzphoto.com/photo-critique/

At photo workshops, the image-critique session conducted by the instructor the is typically one of THE most valuable takeaways a person gets from that particular workshop. Receiving an objective, educated and detailed critique of your images from a non-biased photo professional is advantageous and can help take your photography to the next level. You may post images to social media or share them with your friends & family and get feedback. BUT just what qualifications do those viewers have when it comes to knowing what makes a good image and how to improve it?

Alaska photographer Jeff Schultz will be the presenter at our February meeting and will conduct free personal photo reviews of YOUR images for everyone to listen in and learn.

YOU GET MORE THAN JUST A CRITIQUE: Jeff’s critique will include specific information on how your image can be improved (if it indeed it can be) by both composition, post-processing skills AND with potential ideas to improve the concept through image-creating techniques you may not know of or have considered.

Jeff says: “I absolutely do not pretend to be someone who thinks they have all the nuances of image-structure figured out and know what the perfect shot is. If YOU like it, then it’s good. No matter what I or others say about your work, if it pleases you, then that’s good and is really all that matters. But I do know what I like, what works, what doesn’t, and my experience comes from 40+ years as a successful published photographer.”

NOTE: this is NOT a photo contest. There are no prizes. The idea here is to get constructive feedback on your images. Best not to send an image that has already won a contest or some such. It IS a good idea to send in images that you may be considering for a photo contest or you think lack a certain something, or maybe you want to learn how it can be improved. This will be an anonymous critique. In other words Jeff will not know who’s photo it is that is being critiqued at the time, nor will any of the participants in our meeting. It will be totally anonymous. The photographer who made the image WILL be allowed to ask one and perhaps two questions directly after their image has been critiqued if they so desire. But Jeff will not dwell on a particular image or subject very long. Typical critique of an image will last 1 to 3 minutes.

Details on Submitting Images for Critique Night:

1. You may submit up to THREE images. –in case we have more images than we have time for, we will draw images at random. So all of your images may not get critiqued depending on timeframe.
2. Send your images in JPG format, and the longest dimension for the image you submit should be 1024 pixels long. So a vertical photo will be 1024 tall by whatever the length comes out to be, and a horizontal photo will be 1024 wide by however tall the height comes out to be. Save in the sRGB color space. Your entries must be sent no later than 48 hours before the meeting date. Please make them no larger than 72dpi.
3. Jeff prefers that he and no-one knows who’s photo it is. So if possible, strip out any metadata with your name in it and the file name can be whatever you want— just not your name. Please, no borders or watermarks on the digital images you submit for critique.
4. Submit your entries to cathylynnhart@gmail.com. Cathy will send them to Jeff and be presented at the February Meeting.