What Makes A Photograph Good? ZT

938fg8

Last week , I had been to photo exhibition and a discussion in bangalore and there were couple of good questions from one the budding photo artist and the context of the question was "What Makes a Photograph Good?" and "Why the same picture is judged differently in different photography competitions?"

These were very important questions and made me and others think and also some of them went off the
tangent asking about inventor of photography etc , which usually is the case when old meets new :-).. With no offence I feel that I知 a student of photography and want to be a good photo artist and not an English professor / General knowledge master :-)

As an attempted answer to the first question the I have written few characteristics which I read somewhere ( cant recollect the source ) also learnt from people like Satish H , Murali Santhanam , Mohammed Arfan Asif , V Nagraj and many more excellent photographers that I had the pleasure to interact with. I also believe that these characteristics/rules are common to many good photographs and not necessarily all and so there are definitely great images which break one or even all of the rules, but to break the rules, you should know the rules.

1) The photograph should be interesting - apart from the subject, there has to be something in the print/photograph to catch your eye. You may photograph your family, but for viewers to be interested in the photograph, there has to be something that they can see that is interesting , this interest usually comes from composition, pose, appearance etc.

2) Compositions should be simple - any item in the picture has to reinforce the main theme, not stand on it's own as another interesting detail

3) A good photograph tends to have a sense of correctness to it - the various parts should be arranged in a pattern which makes sense.

4) It's uncommon for a great photograph to have harsh lighting/ dull lighting. Unless the photographer wants harsh/low lighting, its better to avoid it :-). You can photograph at noon!!! , you just need to plan.

5) Great photographs usually have a limited palette of colors which work together. When colors are similar, they have to be very similar, when not at least they need to be complementary - more or less opposite on the color wheel.

6) Great photographs show the unusual or the unnoticed - either the subject is something most of us don't get to see or it's so ordinary that we tend to pay little attention until someone points out that the old building has interesting shapes, patterns, shadows, etc.

7) Great photographs often have a message - It may only be 'see how pretty this flower is' or the message may be one of passing on a feeling - of tranquility or anger, disgust or excitement, joy or sadness.

8) A lot of really good images make you wonder - 'where is he going?', 'what's round that corner?' again unknown, mystery etc has to be presented

9) And last - the truly great photographs are mostly taken by people who take a lot of good photographs and who are ready for the rare great image, but greatness is also a matter of luck. Sometimes photographers create magic due to their experience and luck .

I will say again, all of the above 'rules' are open to breaking one or all of them (though it might be tough to create a great image that breaks every one :-)

For the second question "Why the same picture is judged differently in different salons?"

This is the norm because the viewers are different and the tastes are different.. so we should use every bouquets and brickbats as a part of learning curve and never get dejected or too exited when this happens and also the most important thing is the author should conceptualize and shoot for others and he should like his pictures first , so the best way is to be your own critic first:-)
Also, sharing in online /closed groups helps to understand different view points and plan the next shoot well

[ 本帖最后由 938fg8 于 2010-11-10 10:10 编辑 ]