PKR
Veteran
John, you might want to visit the local camera/photo group. There must be one? Find out where the honest camera dealers and repair people are, etc. Got to be some good people in any group like that?
Looking forward to seeing some photos.
pkr
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
I was thinking more. 
Using nothing, but M4-2 with 35 lenses for couple of years gave me pictures which I consider as not so bad.
With M4-2 been in service half a year, I switched to M3 and affordable LTM 50mm lenses. It took time to adjust with distance, but I'm getting something with practice.
The rest of film cameras are in use just because I have them and they need to be used. I'm exercising shutters and lenses, but not so much for good results...
Using nothing, but M4-2 with 35 lenses for couple of years gave me pictures which I consider as not so bad.
With M4-2 been in service half a year, I switched to M3 and affordable LTM 50mm lenses. It took time to adjust with distance, but I'm getting something with practice.
The rest of film cameras are in use just because I have them and they need to be used. I'm exercising shutters and lenses, but not so much for good results...
oftheherd
Veteran
Up to a point I think. I have seen photos of art in books, with what appears to be good paper and good reproduction, that don't do anything for me at all. If I chance to see them, or others, in a museum or gallery, with good lighting and presentation, I am very likely to change my mind and spend a lot of time looking at them.
Online, the monitor you use, and where you use it can have a big influence as well. My monitor at work sucks swamp water on a good day. I often wait until I can go home where I have a very good LED monitor on my laptop, and can choose the lighting in the room. Often like night and day.
Then there is beauty to the beholder. I like surreal writing and photos/paintings. Some people think surrealism if stupid.
I keep watching the morning light at the Washington Monument. There are times I can't stop but want to very badly, due to the quality of the light in the sky and the sun on the east face of the monument. Others could look at such a photo and say wow, others not look past 'another tourist shot of the monument?'
Who knows, but a good question to throw about Joe.
x-ray
Veteran
It never ceases to amaze me how much credit people give their cameras for a picture they're proud of. Me, I take full blame or full credit for the good and the bad. Anyone can buy a Leica, Nikon or whatever but it has no creative skill on its own. It only does what you tell it to. I always say it's what's 2 inches behind the camera that makes the difference.
The late great guitarist Chet Atkins had a fan come up to him after a concert and say, To make such beautiful music you must have a incredible guitar. Chet's reply was, let me stand it in the corner and then see what kind of music it makes.
Same thing applies to a camera no matter the brand, put it on a table and see what kind of pictures it makes.
Take personal credit where credit is due. I made the photos not my camera. On the other hand if it's trash then suck it up and take the blame.
The late great guitarist Chet Atkins had a fan come up to him after a concert and say, To make such beautiful music you must have a incredible guitar. Chet's reply was, let me stand it in the corner and then see what kind of music it makes.
Same thing applies to a camera no matter the brand, put it on a table and see what kind of pictures it makes.
Take personal credit where credit is due. I made the photos not my camera. On the other hand if it's trash then suck it up and take the blame.
PKR
Veteran
No substitute for the real thing, I agree. But, a facsimile is good enough to get some idea as to your own taste. Many photos in books have induced me to see the real thing. I remember looking at a Van Gogh in a museum and thinking it was a much smaller canvas than I imagined. You had to get close to see it well, but it was roped off too far for that.
I was taught in school that the diagonal of the work is the prime viewing distance. I don't know that's always the case, but I want the chance to look from there. I was also taught that a mat was to be big enough at that distance to block out any peripheral vision. That doesn't happen often.
Even calibrated monitors differ. Most of my prints don't match a monitor image exactly. So yeah, but, for the purpose I proposed Joe exercise, most any good book or monitor is good enough. No monitor will duplicate the color in an oil painting. They are too flat. Paint often has a strong third dimension.
There was a news anchor based in DC who was a good amateur photographer. His apartment window overlooked some often seen part of tourist DC. He set up a camera with a longish lens fixed on that spot. Every morning (early), before going to work, he would take a color shot of the scene if it looked interesting. After a year he had 7-8 really nice pictures of the same scene in different weather, empty and mobbed by tourists, etc. It was sometime ago that I saw those in a magazine, but remember them. They were nicely done and showed something many won't see.
Edit:
I just noticed Raid's "Camera types" thread above this one with 133 posts and 10,000+ views. This thread had 66 posts at the same time with 1,200+ views. That should tell you something about the nature of this forum.
d.keljikian
Established
what makes an image 'good'?
content, emotional impact, aesthetic treatment.
Doug
content, emotional impact, aesthetic treatment.
Doug
finguanzo
Well-known
kittens, lots and lots of kittens.
back alley
IMAGES
hendriphile
Well-known
I agree that content takes precedence over technical perfection. A good part of content is context. Take for instance AE's shot of the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square, one of the most oft- reproduced photos. So a sailor kisses a girl, ho-hum… there are millions of images of a guy kissing a girl, tens of thousands of them taken in public, perhaps thousands of them even taken in Times Square. What sets this image apart is the context: a World War that had dragged on for many bloody years had just ended in victory; the overwhelming emotion found its release and the moment was captured and shared. In order to fully appreciate this image, it helps very much if the context is known.
Bill Clark
Veteran
What makes an image good/great?
For my people photography business, I needed to learn the basics because I didn't have, at least I considered I didn't have a good foundation/base and I didn't want to take the machine gun or hope I get a few they will like approach. I was lucky. I ran into a gent who helped me. It was a joy. We became friends, well sort of.
Not to be a smarty pants, but for my business I learned what the money shots were and that folks who hired me expected them and they gotta be done well. As a pro photog friend once said to me, "beauty is in the eye of the checkbook holder!"
For my people photography business, I needed to learn the basics because I didn't have, at least I considered I didn't have a good foundation/base and I didn't want to take the machine gun or hope I get a few they will like approach. I was lucky. I ran into a gent who helped me. It was a joy. We became friends, well sort of.
Not to be a smarty pants, but for my business I learned what the money shots were and that folks who hired me expected them and they gotta be done well. As a pro photog friend once said to me, "beauty is in the eye of the checkbook holder!"
x-ray
Veteran
I was very fortunate to apprentice for a year and a half with a master ommercial photographer.
In the commercial business we have a saying, A picture is worth a thousand dollars (not words) plus expenses.
PKR
Veteran
I got that, but if you look at the percentage of camera threads vs other..
Do you think this one will catch up to 10k in a year?
I'm not complaining, it's just the way it is. If you look at other forums that deal with camera and photo topics, most have only one sub-forum for non tech talk. It's the way of the modern and maybe pre web camera photo stuff.
The really important technical stuff, like understanding Newton's inverse square law, things that govern light placement as per distance and often determine how much money you have to spend on lighting, almost never come up here.
Photography is all about light as a medium/media. I think the Latin is light painting or light drawing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
pkr
PKR
Veteran
I spent two years sweeping floors and sorting corn flakes, etc for Penn's former studio manager. I did that to learn Penn's lighting.
peterm1
Veteran
Funny. But true. When I look at the photos on Flickr that are most popular they often seem to me to be trite rubbish if not all cuddly kittens.
But they evoke emotions in the ordinary man (and woman) so to them they are "good" photos. But the lots of cuddly kitten hypothesis underlines the deeper answer to the question of what constitutes a good photo. And that deeper answer is that a good photo is one that is emotionally appealing to those looking at it.
tunalegs
Pretended Artist
I'll get back to this in a moment. I have to set up though. The only thing all good photographs have in common is that they're interesting. It can be a plain photo of an interesting things/place/event whatever, or a photograph of something plain taken/printed in an interesting way. The worst thing a photo can be is boring. In some cases the photo itself may not be interesting either in content or technique, but may have an interesting concept or backstory/history to it which again makes it a good photo.
Here's the thing, once one begins to learn about any art form, what interests them expands, changes, they become more aware of and sensitive to "interesting things". And so an enthusiast begins to become aware of "more interesting stuff" that the casual observer simply doesn't appreciate. That's when you start getting "artist's artists" and such. The work is just appreciated on a different level - not to say this makes it better than work an average joe can look at and be excited by, but it does make it different. This is why the cliches are perennially interesting, but the "more interesting stuff" is ignored, or at best develops a sort of cult following.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Do you know why? It is simple. Why general public doesn't care. Because all they do is consuming the picture.
If you are into photography as photographer not just consumer you'll ask questions like: how do I get this BIF, how do I get skateboarder this close and wide and how do I get bug eyes full screen, how do I get night sky with stars in circle and how do I get light for this portrait? This is why photographers come to photo forums.
But geeks and folks with loads of cash are also present on forums. Their questions to ask are: is version N of X is coming and what is the best lens for Leica just ASPH or FLE ?
And both groups often ain't capable of getting good picture for general public consumption. Lets say, they are too good for it.
Darshan
Well-known
To me, a "good" image cannot be defined; I either like it or I do not. Sometimes I like part of an image rather than the whole photo. I don't care if a photo tells a story or not but do appreciate when a someone is able to capture a "speaking" image. On the other hand, I like stills that stir up emotions. I have liked photos that I didn't pay much attention to while taking them and I have disliked some that I thought would be excellent. I tend to like my film photos better than my digital ones not because they are technically superior, it's just that viewing them at a different time (than when they are taken) makes me look at them from a different viewpoint.
I am sure that didn't help much, however, I can tell you what I don't like:
high definition
selective coloring
selective focusing
photos of cats and dogs
macros
I am sure that didn't help much, however, I can tell you what I don't like:
high definition
selective coloring
selective focusing
photos of cats and dogs
macros
KarlG
Established
I've been feeling increasingly like this recently, and as a result have been shooting less and less. I do enjoy the process of street photography, but haven't taken an image I consider to be 'good' in over a year now, which can be quite demotivating & demoralising.
I think I need to find a documentary project or similar that I can get stuck into, or somehow rediscover the joy of wandering aimlessly photographing everything as I did when I started out!
CMur12
Veteran
I think this is an important point, but I would like to add a caveat.
Technical mastery of the image is more important in some forms of photography than in others. In general. landscape photography depends more on technical excellence than photo-journalism and street photography do. There are, of course, other examples, just as there are, of course, exceptions to every rule. Ansel Adams' success depended heavily upon his technical mastery of photography.
Even in the case of landscape and similar photography, technical excellence reveals the creative vision of the photographer. If the creative vision is lacking, there is nothing to reveal.
- Murray
x-ray
Veteran
Murray you're right it really depends on what you're photographing. I started as a PJ in the 60's while in college and transitioned into commercial photography in 1972. Commercial photography requires an equal balance of creativity, technical excellence and the ability to follow layouts when appropriate. Journalism on the other hand is about content primarily. I'm still doing commercial work and documentary photography. Documentary work is much like journalistic in that content is king. Of course I always try to deliver the best image I possibly can. One thing that I've noticed about my best documentary images, they're the absolute hardest negs to print I've ever seen. This comes from not being able to control the environment like we do in commercial work.
As far as BackAlley, he needs to come up with a fresh new subject that stimulates his interest. I think we all go through this once in a while. It's not burnout, it's looking for that bigger better rush from the new best image you've ever taken. I'm certainly always looking for a new and more exciting subject to photograph. I've been spoiled in the past and shot some crazy shoots. I admit I'm an adrenaline junkie. I could never be a landscape photographer because I need a higher level of tension and an adrenaline rush. (click the link at the bottom and view my images. Scroll through the later pages ) not everyone needs that and functions better in a calm safe environment. Some get a rush from a technically perfect print of a beautiful landscape and others of us get it from standing in the middle of a group handling rattle snakes in church. BackAlley need a new rush.
As far as BackAlley, he needs to come up with a fresh new subject that stimulates his interest. I think we all go through this once in a while. It's not burnout, it's looking for that bigger better rush from the new best image you've ever taken. I'm certainly always looking for a new and more exciting subject to photograph. I've been spoiled in the past and shot some crazy shoots. I admit I'm an adrenaline junkie. I could never be a landscape photographer because I need a higher level of tension and an adrenaline rush. (click the link at the bottom and view my images. Scroll through the later pages ) not everyone needs that and functions better in a calm safe environment. Some get a rush from a technically perfect print of a beautiful landscape and others of us get it from standing in the middle of a group handling rattle snakes in church. BackAlley need a new rush.