gns
Well-known
Found this today through Steidl. Haven't even read any of them yet, but the list of contributors looks interesting...
http://photoworks.org.uk/category/ideas/idea-1/
http://photoworks.org.uk/category/ideas/idea-1/
what makes a good photograph
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gns
Well-known
I guess most of us have written this essay. Or tried several times, at least in our heads.
I'll poke the bear a little and guess that none of these mentions digital vs film, leica, cropping or bags.
I'll poke the bear a little and guess that none of these mentions digital vs film, leica, cropping or bags.
mfogiel
Veteran
Ron Wood got close - it has to stir in you the right emotion.
daveleo
what?
What makes a good color ?
Sparrow
Veteran
... ones perception of it ... obviously
gns
Well-known
Is your point that all photos are equally good?
Is the answer the same if the subject is poems?...What makes a good word?
daveleo
what?
gns
Well-known
Well, it's answerable. There will be many answers and yes, they're debatable. But to hold that because there is no 1 correct answer, one shouldn't answer, is not very interesting or fun.
Maybe there are as many good answers as there are good photographs (each good photograph is an answer to the question).
daveleo
what?
telenous
Well-known
Thank you for the link. Still reading here too.
I agree, if not to the letter, then to the spirit of your post. Taking a step back and looking at all of the essays, they suggest a pretty diverse range of answers, while a full-scale reductive explanation is as elusive as ever. Just as well: aesthetic questions can't be answered in the clear-cut manner of a demonstrative science.
Perhaps the way to go here is to divide photographic practice and use in groups, each one unearthing its own set of rules and conventions. That approach would preserve a couple of otherwise hard-to-combine intuitions we have about photography: (a) "good" photographs obey to an extent certain rules, and, (b) the rules are conventional and not universal.
.
I agree, if not to the letter, then to the spirit of your post. Taking a step back and looking at all of the essays, they suggest a pretty diverse range of answers, while a full-scale reductive explanation is as elusive as ever. Just as well: aesthetic questions can't be answered in the clear-cut manner of a demonstrative science.
Perhaps the way to go here is to divide photographic practice and use in groups, each one unearthing its own set of rules and conventions. That approach would preserve a couple of otherwise hard-to-combine intuitions we have about photography: (a) "good" photographs obey to an extent certain rules, and, (b) the rules are conventional and not universal.
.
35photo
Well-known
Whatever moves you to look at that photograph and look again..might ask questions, might provide answers to questions..or its just damn interesting to look at..
helen.HH
To Light & Love ...
Its got to move You... Stir the Imagination
as a viewer it should pull You in
the monent stands still in Time
And holds You transfixed
Well thats what a Good photo does for Me
as a viewer it should pull You in
the monent stands still in Time
And holds You transfixed
Well thats what a Good photo does for Me
airfrogusmc
Veteran
Some quotes from some really good photographers.
"A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there." - Ralph Gibson
"A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety." - Ansel Adams
"...all photographs are selfportraits." - Minor White
"You should be able to look at me and see my work. You should be able to look at my work and see me." - Roy DeCarava
"A great photograph contains a mystery, an elusive and haunting nucleus that makes us return again and again to probe its depth, hoping to winnow yet another insight." - Martin Elkort
"I think that the photographer must completely control his picture and bring to it all his personality, and in this area most photographs never transcend being just snapshots. When a great photographer does infuse the snapshot with his personality and vision, it can be transformed into something truly moving and beautiful." - Duane Michals
"Great photography is always on the edge of failure." - Garry Winogrand
"We don’t take pictures with cameras – we take them with our hearts and minds." - Arnold Newman
"A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there." - Ralph Gibson
"A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety." - Ansel Adams
"...all photographs are selfportraits." - Minor White
"You should be able to look at me and see my work. You should be able to look at my work and see me." - Roy DeCarava
"A great photograph contains a mystery, an elusive and haunting nucleus that makes us return again and again to probe its depth, hoping to winnow yet another insight." - Martin Elkort
"I think that the photographer must completely control his picture and bring to it all his personality, and in this area most photographs never transcend being just snapshots. When a great photographer does infuse the snapshot with his personality and vision, it can be transformed into something truly moving and beautiful." - Duane Michals
"Great photography is always on the edge of failure." - Garry Winogrand
"We don’t take pictures with cameras – we take them with our hearts and minds." - Arnold Newman
David Hughes
David Hughes
Hi,
In this context you might just as well ask what "good" means. To most people it's probably what they like...
Regards, David
In this context you might just as well ask what "good" means. To most people it's probably what they like...
Regards, David
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
Agreed, with two differences. I'd take out the words "most" and "probably".
gns
Well-known
I think that's exactly what is being asked (with respect to photography). An answer like, "One that I like" is not an answer really because it just prompts the question, "what is it that you like?".
Photography is visual and to try to explain it verbally is, at some level, futile. But I think it's still interesting and probably instructive to try. I didn't write my own essay, but I did jot down some points I would definitely touch on if I did...
A photograph is a description. It is not the thing described. In some respects, it is a very accurate description, but in other ways, it is a very poor one. The best photographs always seem to elaborate on this.
The photograph is limited in its scope. It has edges, a frame. It corrals a portion of the world into its own little world. Some things are included and the rest is left out. Good photographs display a coherence in which every element serves a purpose. They are about order and chaos.
The world is constantly moving and changing. The camera, because it freezes a moment in time, is able to show us things we would not otherwise be able to see.
Good photographs should reveal something to us.
A good photograph also has to be a surprise. It has to be new. When it is, it lets the viewer into the head of the photographer, points to her/his intelligence. That, in the end is what it’s really all about.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
What makes a good photograph is simple: it has to be interesting.
There is nothing more to it - at all.
The problem is everybody is interested in different things. 🙂
There is nothing more to it - at all.
The problem is everybody is interested in different things. 🙂
gns
Well-known
So, what (to you) makes an interesting photo?
RichC
Well-known
Photoworks - I work for them! 🙂
What makes a good photograph...?
I don't think any of the answers in this thread are sufficient because they could describe a "good" anything. For example, mfogiel wrote "it has to stir in you the right emotion" - but "it" could be a painting, a movie, a book, even cheese or a pet!
I suggest that for a photograph to be good, it must do more than, say, "stir the emotions": the latter may make a good picture but a poor photograph. What, then would make a photograph both a good picture and a good photograph? My answer it needs to play to the strengths of what makes a photograph "good" - that is, those qualities which differentiate a photograph and make it unique from other types of picture such as a painting.
After all, if it makes no difference whether a picture is, for example, a painting or a photograph, then surely it is a poor painting or photograph because you're ignoring the strengths of a particular medium? Take sculpture: this medium emphasises three dimensions, and is suited to subjects best explored in that way.
This is an old argument - "medium specificity" - and was a driver of abstract painting: the reasoning being that paintings are flat, so are more suited to the exploration of two dimensions rather than of three dimensions through the artifice of perspective.
Between the two world wars and with the rise of Modernism, photography began to be increasingly treated as a medium in its own right, with unique properties separate from other pictorial media such as painting. As Steiglitz said in 1910, "It is high time that the stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solar plexus blow ... Let the photographer make a perfect photograph". Photographers began to make images based on the photographs unique properties - i.e. its medium specificity.
However, medium specificity has now largely fallen by the wayside: the mainstream view is that just because a medium isn't great at something, that's not a reason not to use it in that way. What is important is an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of a medium, so that if either is ignored, this is integral to how you treat the medium. Consider painting: if you use it in a three-dimensional way by, for example, painting a three-dimensional object, then this should be deliberate rather than because you're unaware that paintings are best suited to exploring two dimensions - flatness. This is no different to writing: to be a writer, it helps to be aware of grammar so that you can ignore "the rules" to achieve a particular aim. To pick a photographic example, pictorialism has returned but in a very self-aware way - as by the war photographer Simon Norfolk (see photo below).
Before leaving medium specificity, it's worth pointing out two major failings that led to its sidelining. First, mediums are not distinct: Does Photoshopping eventually turn a photograph into a digital illustration - and if so when? If you take all the individual frames out a movie and put them in a book, is it still a movie, or are you now looking at photographs?
That said, it is undeniable that each medium has its own essential qualities: sculpture is not great at narrative, unlike literature.
Returning to photography, what is it good at? What are its unique qualities? These have been much discussed, and among the most well-known attempts is that by John Szarkowski in his book "The Photographer's Eye"
• The thing itself
• The detail
• The frame
• Time
• Vantage point
One way to observe these properties clearly is not to look at accomplished photographs but at, say, family snapshots or a CCTV image, where the camera is used simply as a recording device.
The thing itself:
The camera sees reality, but a photograph is only a representation and thus exists as a separate object on its own terms. Despite the strong connection between the subject and the photographic image, the photographer should recall this difference, and, while looking at reality through the viewfinder, make choices based on how the image will appear (e.g. How will the film record colours? How big will the print be?).
The detail:
Photographs are full of details, and insignificant - often mundane - details can take on unexpected meaning and symbolism. This nature of the detail in the photograph was pithily summarised by Capa, who famously said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
The frame:
The frame is a window on reality, and allows the photographer to create a selective view of reality, creating relationships that never existed. The frame bisects objects too (not common in painting until the invention of photography).
Time:
Photographs immobilise the passage of time, whether a short instant or an exposure of hours. We thus have "the instant" showing time seemingly impossibly frozen, which caused such a furore when Muybridge showed his galloping horse in the 19th century (the sculptor Auguste Rodin was outraged, declaring, "It is the artist who tells the truth and photography that lies"), as well as ethereal blur and the trace of motion (e.g. blurred faces, and light trails).
Vantage point:
The camera does not have to see the world from head height: it can be pointed down, held at an angle, at ground level, under water... The camera allows us to see from unexpected vantage points.
If we bear in mind these unique properties of the photographic medium, then that goes a long way, I suggest, towards making a "good" photograph. We need to realise that photography is not painting.
Below, in my opinion, is a "good" photograph. It's by Simon Norfolk, and it's a large print, over a metre wide. An article comments: "When you see this picture in a gallery from 20 metres away, you think, 'God, that's gorgeous!'" But when you're close up, you notice disturbing details, such as ruins, a bombed-out tank and a rocket launcher. And a label stating that it's a photograph taken during the Iraq War in 2003. It's not an idyllic scene but a war photograph: "you're looking at a place where people were slaughtered".
Simon Norfolk is aware of the unique strengths of the photograph and uses pictorialism in an ironic way - and it is arguable that this deliberate contrast between beauty and horror is as powerful as the usual photographs of war that depict death.
What makes a good photograph...?
I don't think any of the answers in this thread are sufficient because they could describe a "good" anything. For example, mfogiel wrote "it has to stir in you the right emotion" - but "it" could be a painting, a movie, a book, even cheese or a pet!
I suggest that for a photograph to be good, it must do more than, say, "stir the emotions": the latter may make a good picture but a poor photograph. What, then would make a photograph both a good picture and a good photograph? My answer it needs to play to the strengths of what makes a photograph "good" - that is, those qualities which differentiate a photograph and make it unique from other types of picture such as a painting.
After all, if it makes no difference whether a picture is, for example, a painting or a photograph, then surely it is a poor painting or photograph because you're ignoring the strengths of a particular medium? Take sculpture: this medium emphasises three dimensions, and is suited to subjects best explored in that way.
This is an old argument - "medium specificity" - and was a driver of abstract painting: the reasoning being that paintings are flat, so are more suited to the exploration of two dimensions rather than of three dimensions through the artifice of perspective.
Between the two world wars and with the rise of Modernism, photography began to be increasingly treated as a medium in its own right, with unique properties separate from other pictorial media such as painting. As Steiglitz said in 1910, "It is high time that the stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solar plexus blow ... Let the photographer make a perfect photograph". Photographers began to make images based on the photographs unique properties - i.e. its medium specificity.
However, medium specificity has now largely fallen by the wayside: the mainstream view is that just because a medium isn't great at something, that's not a reason not to use it in that way. What is important is an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of a medium, so that if either is ignored, this is integral to how you treat the medium. Consider painting: if you use it in a three-dimensional way by, for example, painting a three-dimensional object, then this should be deliberate rather than because you're unaware that paintings are best suited to exploring two dimensions - flatness. This is no different to writing: to be a writer, it helps to be aware of grammar so that you can ignore "the rules" to achieve a particular aim. To pick a photographic example, pictorialism has returned but in a very self-aware way - as by the war photographer Simon Norfolk (see photo below).
Before leaving medium specificity, it's worth pointing out two major failings that led to its sidelining. First, mediums are not distinct: Does Photoshopping eventually turn a photograph into a digital illustration - and if so when? If you take all the individual frames out a movie and put them in a book, is it still a movie, or are you now looking at photographs?
That said, it is undeniable that each medium has its own essential qualities: sculpture is not great at narrative, unlike literature.
Returning to photography, what is it good at? What are its unique qualities? These have been much discussed, and among the most well-known attempts is that by John Szarkowski in his book "The Photographer's Eye"
• The thing itself
• The detail
• The frame
• Time
• Vantage point
One way to observe these properties clearly is not to look at accomplished photographs but at, say, family snapshots or a CCTV image, where the camera is used simply as a recording device.
The thing itself:
The camera sees reality, but a photograph is only a representation and thus exists as a separate object on its own terms. Despite the strong connection between the subject and the photographic image, the photographer should recall this difference, and, while looking at reality through the viewfinder, make choices based on how the image will appear (e.g. How will the film record colours? How big will the print be?).
The detail:
Photographs are full of details, and insignificant - often mundane - details can take on unexpected meaning and symbolism. This nature of the detail in the photograph was pithily summarised by Capa, who famously said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
The frame:
The frame is a window on reality, and allows the photographer to create a selective view of reality, creating relationships that never existed. The frame bisects objects too (not common in painting until the invention of photography).
Time:
Photographs immobilise the passage of time, whether a short instant or an exposure of hours. We thus have "the instant" showing time seemingly impossibly frozen, which caused such a furore when Muybridge showed his galloping horse in the 19th century (the sculptor Auguste Rodin was outraged, declaring, "It is the artist who tells the truth and photography that lies"), as well as ethereal blur and the trace of motion (e.g. blurred faces, and light trails).
Vantage point:
The camera does not have to see the world from head height: it can be pointed down, held at an angle, at ground level, under water... The camera allows us to see from unexpected vantage points.
If we bear in mind these unique properties of the photographic medium, then that goes a long way, I suggest, towards making a "good" photograph. We need to realise that photography is not painting.
Below, in my opinion, is a "good" photograph. It's by Simon Norfolk, and it's a large print, over a metre wide. An article comments: "When you see this picture in a gallery from 20 metres away, you think, 'God, that's gorgeous!'" But when you're close up, you notice disturbing details, such as ruins, a bombed-out tank and a rocket launcher. And a label stating that it's a photograph taken during the Iraq War in 2003. It's not an idyllic scene but a war photograph: "you're looking at a place where people were slaughtered".
Simon Norfolk is aware of the unique strengths of the photograph and uses pictorialism in an ironic way - and it is arguable that this deliberate contrast between beauty and horror is as powerful as the usual photographs of war that depict death.
kbg32
neo-romanticist
I know it when I see it.
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