On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 12:47 AM, Doug Brewer <d...@alphoto.com> wrote:
>OK, if we're going to discuss this, first you have to define what exactly >makes a good photograph, without saying "a good photo is not this..." or "a >good photo is >not that..." >Fire when ready. Thought about in my sleep. :-) I'll cop out with the following: We and I may be mixing up the terms art and good in this discussion... oh well... There can be be no single answer to the question because photographs are taken for a variety of reasons. Some photographs are intended as a form of artistic expression while others may be simply documentary. Some are documentary of an event, say a party, while others are taken for more mundane reasons. I believe some photos are taken for practically no reason whatsoever - the person has a camera and therefore is using it (similar to what happens if you give a child a camera and they mostly, indiscriminately, start walking around actuating the shutter). (Like Eggleston, IMO, wink) There's at least two ways of defining good when it's applied to photography: 1. Good because the image fulfills the requirements for which it was taken 2. Good because the image possesses some attributes that make it stand out in a positive way Individually we all define good somewhat differently. It seems to me that invoking/or not an emotional response is not the whole thing either. First, one viewer is different from the next, so will be impacted differently. Second, the viewer may have an emotional response to the image that has little to do with the merits of the image itself. Example 1: I love my baby, so a picture of my baby invokes an emotional response. Example 2: I remember the day JFK was shot, so when I see images of that traumatic event, it invokes an emotional response. In both examples above the subject matter alone is what may produce a response. I would think that a snapshot baby picture or a hastily taken image documenting an event, likely does not qualify as art unless it invokes a response for reasons other than the subject matter itself. In the GESO I just posted of wide angle portraits. Are they good or bad? Are they art? I didn't intend them to be art. Nor would I ever submit that they are such. Yet, I took them with the sole purpose of invoking an emotional response (which from what I read is either amusement or horror). Are they good? IMO, yes, but only in that they invoked the response I was hoping for). Are they good because they possess some other qualities, such as excellent composition, lighting, exposure control? No. In the end, I suppose, the only statements I can really make that are unassailable is "I like that image" or "I think that's a good image". My thoughts and emotions are my own and require no validation. If someone disagrees, their opposite statements are just as valid. As I said, I think the PDML exhibit in Chicago was a far better collection of images than the Eggleston exhibit. That's my opinion. For instance I saw nothing artistic or good about the photographs of a pile of garbage or the black porcelain interior of an oven. It's probably easier to define a bad photograph as opposed to a good one. A bad photograph is one that a person sees once and never cares to look at again. Tom C. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
