Lol at some of these comments. For the people who think there are “dumb questions” and that people should just Google it - there’s a ton of garbage out there. Searching for nearly anything photography related is going to get them a lot of crank opinions and a lot of people upselling gear or software that they don’t need.

If you’re an experienced photographer, you likely automatically ignore most of it. But newbies can’t really do that. If you don’t want to answer a question for the 100th time, just don’t answer 🤷‍♀️ You don’t have to respond to every post on a public forum.

OP - I think you’re unlikely to find good criticism on a general photography forum simply because photography is such a wide field. People’s interest and experience vary wildly for format, subject matter, and style. So when you put all of them in the same room, I think criticism is going to coalesce around perceived technical flaws or outright trolling. Like if you really wanna shoot nighttime streets on an iphone, I’m gonna excuse myself from that conversation because that’s not my area of expertise. You’re gonna be left with the people from every other niche who don’t mind telling you git gud or that you need a better camera.

Your best bet (at least online) is to look for forums or groups as tightly tailored to your particular style as possible. They’ll be nicer and you’ll get much more helpful feedback than you’ll get from photographers at large. And really one of the best things you can do is try to forge a relationship with someone (online or IRL) who has the style you want to achieve. A good mentor is better than a hundred internet critics.

Bar lighting is absolutely terrible. I think you’ll struggle without an external flash.

Is it possible to get some good photos? Probably. But you’ll be heavily restricted by your environment. And fast-moving subjects might be off the table entirely, unless the venue has really good stage lights (Here… A rarity)