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What is a "good" photograph? Anonymous
im just wondering what you guys consider makes a photograph good?

is it content, story, technical ability and so on? is there such a thing as a bad photograph?
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
A good photograph is a photograph that I enjoy looking at. There is no set of rules that, if followed, will make a good photograph. There are a bunch of "If you do this, your photograph will probably be bad" rules, but it's possible to violate *all* of them and still come out with a good photo in the end. It's an "I know it when I see it" sort of thing.

And yes, there are many, many bad photographs.
>> Anonymous
>>56751

haven't you just totally contradicted yourself?
>> Anonymous
composition, creativity, and of course lighting and equipment.
but remember you can still have an amazing award winning photo taken on a disposable 35mm
>> Anonymous
>>56816

>>creativity

yeah i have to agree that creativity is the most important aspect.

technical aptitude and equipment can be bought. there are hundreds of thousands of good technical photographers. the only thing that separates them from the great great photographers is their ideas.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>56815
Nope.
>> Anonymous
>>56751

>>And yes, there are many, many bad photographs.

ok then explain what makes a photograph bad, rather than you simply dont like it. All of your parameters to what is a "good" photograph are all subjective.

you completely contradict yourself by then gong on to say there are many, many bad photographs.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>56859
>All of your parameters to what is a "good" photograph are all subjective.
You fail *massively* for assuming that there are objective, universally true tests for what is and is not good art.

Art is subjective by its very nature.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>56859
The confusion might come from the fact that, when I say there are many, many bad photographs, I mean there are many, many photographs that I personally think are bad. Some of these photographs are widely considered to be masterpieces and hang in galleries and cost more for a single print than I'm likely to make from photography during the course of my entire photographic 'career'.

E.g., the work of William "heres my dog in a skirt lol" Wegman.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
There are two parts of a photograph - the technical bit and the story it tells.

A photograph may have a good story but be very bad technically - and vice versa.

Now, what makes a good photograph technically is composition, sharpness, colours etc.

What makes a good story varies and is highly subjective. OP's pic is all story and no technique. Personally I think that it's an unfinished and slightly boring story in itself.

Camera-Specific Properties:Equipment MakeNIKON CORPORATIONCamera ModelNIKON D80Camera SoftwareAdobe Photoshop CS2 WindowsMaximum Lens Aperturef/1.7Sensing MethodOne-Chip Color AreaColor Filter Array Pattern834Focal Length (35mm Equiv)75 mmImage-Specific Properties:Image OrientationTop, Left-HandHorizontal Resolution300 dpiVertical Resolution300 dpiImage Created2007:06:14 21:27:18Exposure Time1/2000 secF-Numberf/2.2Exposure ProgramManualISO Speed Rating500Exposure Bias0 EVMetering ModeCenter Weighted AverageLight SourceUnknownFlashNo FlashFocal Length50.00 mmComment(c)SolutionsEtceteraColor Space InformationsRGBImage Width862Image Height778RenderingNormalExposure ModeManualWhite BalanceAutoScene Capture TypeStandardGain ControlLow Gain UpContrastHardSaturationNormalSharpnessNormalSubject Distance RangeUnknown
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
I like this photo
>> Anonymous
>>56881
A good photograph can be funny. I like it, though I suspect it's just a crosspost from /b/.
>> Anonymous
QFT. I was fucking around in Second Life (Don't ask) and saw this art museum. Apparently, they put the same art up IRL and in Second Life. The whole gallery was Devart shit. Lots of selective desaturation and shit. It was the same picture, taken in different spots, with the same piss-poor processing. It pissed me off that this guy is getting a real-life gallery to display such shitty artwork, and so many good photographers slave their asses off just to please /p/.
>> Anonymous
>>56867
I disagree on the sharpness part. A blurry photograph can add a lot to the story.
>> Anonymous
>>56941
yeah, it adds "i don't know how to take sharp photos" to the story.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>56943
See http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/spring03/photographers/clay/Seminar/Robert%20Capa/CapaDDay
UC.htm

Take a look at those shots of the D-Day invasion by Robert Capa. The blurriness (and the really harsh grain) gives the shot a very gritty, realistic feel. Shit was moving, shit was moving *fast*, and he was dodging bullets while taking those shots. It really puts you in the moment.

There are also more mundane situations where you just want to convey a sense of motion and/or chaos where a blurry pic will win over a sharp one, but I think Capa's D-Day pics are the best example of them.

(Although, granted, he probably would have chosen sharper ones if some jackass hadn't opened the door to the darkroom while he was developing 'em. But hey, even his bottom-of-the-barrel castoffs are considered masterpieces, and that's saying something.)
>> Anonymous
>>56943

either a troll or someone thats a camera whore.

most ppl that have no creative talent blame it on technical aspects or equipment.

ie , 98% of flicker ..oh sorry FLICKR.
>> Anonymous
>>56950
They were blurred because they were melted in the drying cabinet by a lab tech.
http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html

Look at any book of his photos and you would see his images were always sharp and crystal clear, even in the height of battle (like Death of a Loyalist Soldier).
>> Liska !!LIVFOETqL8j
For me personally? A good photograph is one with color or (preferably) black and white that's different from everything else out there. Perhaps a view I hadn't seen before; also one that tells a story. Everyone has specific tastes in photos that draws them in.. i happen to like landscapes, flowers, sunsets, houses in big landscapes, old stuff, etc. If i stop and look at for a moment, then walk away thinking "wow, that was beautiful" it's a great shot
>> Anonymous
Something relevent here: a retrospective of Magnum photographs on Slate, including "Death of a Loyalist Soldier" (the first one, given a different title, for those who haven't seen it before) and one of Capa's D-Day pictures.

http://todayspictures.slate.com/20070619/

Four things that I think are worth mentioning:

1. The last and the third to last are the worst in the series, easily. The series is arranged in chronological order.
2. The film grain in a lot of the older photographs is worse than the noise from most point-and-shoot cameras we see today.
3. Number sixteen has some really nice bokeh going on.
4. Am I the only one who wishes old film cameras put out EXIF data?
>> Anonymous
>>57038
my life for film that gives exif, i seriously need to write down setting or something because i can never recall what i was doing when i finally get the film back. at best its an educated guess.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>57061
Newer medium-format cameras burn that information into the film at the bottom of the roll (like right below the frame, not like the stupid date-back cameras that stick it in the frame). *Covet*.
>> Anonymous
If I knew what made a good photograph, I wouldn't be posting replies on/p/.
>> Anonymous
>>57061
To play Devil's Advocate, does knowing the Exif data make a difference? Will it help you produce better photographs?
>> elf_man !fBgo7jDjms
Depending on how technically-inclined you are, it can help you learn, by observing the effects of different shutter speeds on moving objects, how different apertures change the light, etc. Helps provide a visual connection to understanding how these things work. YMMV, of course.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>57071
Yes.

Knowing how someone did something makes it easier to do it yourself.

Example: People often wonder why their shots of the moon come out with a big burnt hole where the moon should be instead of any actual detail. Looking at exif data of people who've shot the moon successfully will clue them in that the moon is *fucking bright* so they should be treating it like an object in full daylight rather than like a long-exposure picture.

Additionally, having EXIF available in your own shots will give you the opportunity to see what you did and, if you did something wrong, determine what that is. E.g., if you get a lot of blurry pictures back, you can check the exif and go "Oh, I was shooting these with 30 second exposures. I guess I can't do that handheld and get a sharp image"
>> Anonymous
>>57071
I don't think it would help that much, but it's just a matter of curiosity: "hmm, I wonder what aperture this photograph was shot at."

I'm just addicted to clicking "EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide," to be honest.
>> Anonymous
>>57071
I guess it could be helpful but then again I shoot 35mm. So I have to guess aperture half the time. Much of the time the framing, brightness, and contrast is primarily dictated by what I do in the darkroom.

As for good photos, I'm normally one who says "whatever is enjoyable to look at" but some things are so typical that they annoy me (flower close-ups). Then there are some things that I just enjoy looking at even if they are tremendously hackneyed (storm systems, fish-eye cityscapes).

So it is a personal opinion a good deal of the time, but there are many pictures I can identify as being bad by most standards. Most of those are ones where they fail to take into account the framing, background, or some clearly lax choice of content.
>> Anonymous
>>57061
The Nikon F80S (the non-US version of the N80) imprints the f-stop and shutter data between the frames.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/n80.htm
>> Anonymous
its a shame most of you have little or no understanding of contemporary photography. fashion and advertising being your magnum opus.
>> Anonymous
>>56750

its all relative.
>> Anonymous
>>56950
Lee Miller - worked with the surrealists, fashion and WW2 photographer - has teh sharpness as well. Some good pictures of dead Nazis as well.
>> Anonymous
>>57313
you could enlighten us as to what contemporary photography is about