I have stumbled across some accounts on dA that do inverse faving... the accounts are named things such as ~ionlyfavegarbage, and then they fave things that they feel do not qualify as art, to express their dislike of the deviation through faving it. It sounds kinda elitist, but most of the accounts I have seen do not go after young artists that may have made some mistakes. They fave things such as effortless snapshots that would do better on a myspace account, or a doodle that clearly took 5 seconds and no thought to scribble down.

The most interesting one I came across was ~ifavecrap. This user explains in their journal why they don't think certain pieces qualify as art, and then they find similar pieces on deviantArt that they think DO qualify as art. This is interesting, because it is sort of a constructive criticism done with imagery instead of just words. For instance, from their latest journal: [link] vs. [link]

The critique here is very obvious with the juxtaposition of the two. The first photo is just a picture of the dog lying on the grass. The dog is not doing anything particularly interesting (as, in fact, the artist says in the description, it is just being a dog). The picture is not clear or close enough to show off any interesting features of the dog, such as the texture of the fur, or the moistness of the nose, etc. It is not lit interestingly. The dog is towards the top of the photo, and there is something else in the yard at the top. The rest is just grass. This makes it highly unbalanced toward the top, and the negative space is uninteresting. It appears to be just a snapshot the user took of their dog one day on a whim. There does not seem to be any artistic forethought or artistic effort. It is merely an ordinary, everyday, photograph, as if taken by a lay person, not a photographer.

The second photograph is also of a dog. The dog is a split-second away from catching a filthy soccer ball, which is seemingly hanging in midair mere centimeters from the dog's wide open mouth. You can clearly see the dog's fur flying with movement. The dog's eye is bulging, as if with excitement. Everything is in mid-motion, yet all the details are clear. The lighting is nice, and actually adds an extra bit of interest, since it divides the photo into a light and a dark half. The dog, ball, and even the patio and the grass are well positioned in the frame and are balanced. And, speaking of a frame, there is a dark frame added around the photo, which adds crispness and a little extra touch to the photo. The contrast is good may have been enhanced a bit (or the photo just turned out that well). The shot itself may have been planned, or it might have gotten lucky, but either way, it is definitely art, in that artistic effort went into it. Plus, it is interesting to look at. I am generally unimpressed by photography, but this piece earned a fave from me (and when I fave something, it means I do indeed really like the art).

Anyway, I think I am going to try out this method of critique, as it makes certain points immediately clear that I would ramble on about in a massive comment, like I did above. I'm going to try [link] (from ~ifavtrash's favorites) vs. [link] The first is a picture of a butterfly that landed on the person's wrist. While it is cool to have a butterfly land on your wrist, and cool to have a camera handy at the time, the picture is blurry (which is understandable due to the rush of quick-take-a-picture-before-it-flies-away!, yet decreases the quality of the photo). They lighting is also not very good, and the background appears to be of a roof and the street below, which is the less than ideal backdrop. While this is certainly a very nice picture to put in a photo album or a myspace, if it were my photo, I would not have posted it on deviantArt. It is a nice moment to have been able to capture and save for yourself, but I would not say it is art. The second picture, on the other hand, is of a similar butterfly on a flower. The picture is closer, and the butterfly is not blurry at all, so you can see all the details on the butterfly. It also is in an interesting position, with the one wing of the butterfly aimed directly at the viewer, rather than the typically seen shot of the butterfly with the wings flat. The lighting and contrast are good. Since the camera was focused on the butterfly, the background blurs out and is non-distracting. The flowers aren't in the best focus, but the decision was probably made that it was more important to have the butterfly in focus than the flowers. Effort went into this photograph, and it is definitely art.