What makes picture

Hi, very interesting discussion here….. Thanks for all of the discussion here. When I look at a photograph I tend to take one of two paths.

Path 1 — The photos is emotionally stirring and I fall deeper into the photo. I start thinking about the circumstances, emotions and start asking questions related to the subject. Path 2 — The photo is not immediately captivating and I gravitate towards technicalities of the photograph exposure, color rendering, framing…. Now my questioning tends to be more shallow and related to the technical aspects of the photo rather than the subject itself. Life is not always in focus. I love the way you are capturing the tour.

Michiel, very well said. The best pictures are the ones that evoke emotion. Context is key to this. What matters is that one can, no, one is drawn to look at it a lot longer than for just a cursory glance. Nymaera: I actually like the image a lot. Heres a picture I took on the plane to Hong Kong however, due to the plane being bumpy, I could not get the edge of the seat in perfect focus.

I almost ignored this photo of my son because it was not tack sharp. I see it now as one of my favorites. I can still see his lollypop anyway ;o. Elaine, thanks so much! It was a school concert for parents. I did the best I could do without a flash. Mason was under the ceiling light in the school hallway after the performance. I pressed the camera to my face with a very sloooow shutter speed. It did come soft but I am glad it did. I think that is what this thread is all about because I would not want it another way.

I now have it forever :o. Then, then fellow photogs. We are getting moved a bit to tears with our humanising our dehumanised wold of megabits, megapixels, megalenses, megamega everything. Off Adams and Avedon and their likes! If I got it right, spontanious and accidental, however of focus, misframed photo is classic.

It is!. But then everything, especially taken in colour is valid. I mean everything!. How right! You get a sliver of life in universe.

Well, answered the man, as it goes for carrots, they are Gods best shot for them. Boy, everything can be art in right time and the right place. Parr, otherwised excellent street snapper, that elevates daily lifes banality to museum and art gallery level. Take any of bleached labprint from you family album, blow it up to by, hang it in the IN place and you have it. Whole human emotion scale from tears to joy are classic and universal. Well in old days it was visual and emotional universality, a family of man.

Nowedays the impact is heightned by story. It would be very difficult to make captivating photo of three out of focus, blurred and hard to recognise persons but if you could prove it was spaced out Brad with Paris and Brittney, it would make the global day. If, like somebody said, the picture is worth a thousands words, why all that jazz? You know how Hollywood enhances attention on a person? Blurring the background. And the likes of H. Clean distribution of light and dark areas and putting main object in undistructing space.

Of course all options are posible. I mean braking the rules. But then you should know what to brake. The one Pablo Picasso was master at that. Only when he first fully exploited the rules he set, he broke them.

Prefering Avedon to H. Merci Steve. Yes, profoundly substantial and well supplied with self-produced examples of good photos. Bravo, YJ! You have a great future as an art critic! That simple…. Well, yes, harsh… But very much in tune with the original statement. Because I say so! Or you get punched in the nose…. Sorry for the stupid disclaimer…. I wonder if there are photographers that master their craft to such extend that they can do this kind of thing on purpose, rather than as an accident.

Oof photo can do wonders sometimes! This would be my choice also to get it printed. Weird but true. This shot was on my way home from work and i tried to get a lock on truck and blur the windshield but came vice versa. When i saw it on my computer i knew it would be definitely a keeper and it was, it sits above my computer desk now.

This photo is has very beautiful elements to it. The spontaneous couple not the bike. The shadow and the high-contrast light. And I also wish, that the shadow of the bike with the couple would not be cut off. But it already is the way it is. Nothing could be done about it now. I think these questions were addressed here quite extensively. Maybe not answered for all but at least for some people. That is not bad already. That is not too bad, either. After all, what makes an image successful?

I guess, the exposure and adoration. And, very often, controversy. This image is already enjoying all three. He is also from Russia, like me, but lives in Paris now.

He is one of the top Fashion photographers in the world. Fashion photography is usually associated with absolute technical perfection of the images. He says he likes it that way. He prefers to work with long exposures. Rarely makes a shot less that one second long. But he is fine with it and his clients are happy, too.

He also likes to light his subjects in very strange ways, which is no less unconventional than his OOF technique. Photography is Art. You can do anything. As long as you yourself and at least some other people are happy with it.

Anyway, Birgit, I am preaching to a preacher here. You are an outstanding photographer. I love your work. I dissent from the view that photography is exclusively an emotional enterprise. All art has elements of both craft technical and artistic emotional.

But whichever you do, you do it by design. He intended the primary actors to be in sharp focus. So let me understand this properly. A friend of mine told him about it and bugged me so much that I eventually played to him. We even recorded it and hated it so much I convinced my producer to take it off of the album before it was released. It was only due to a third party hearing it, saying that the song was the only one she could remember, that Trevor horn finally put it back on the album.

I had the military call me for permission to include it in their dressage. It is a classic, the song! Many things have to come together to create a classic and a lot of these elements are not controlled by the photographer. In the end it is the wider audience, or viewers that knights the result. Things happen unintentionally and that can lead to much nicer results. When I first got into photograhy, I was wowed by HCB not emotionally touched due to the perfect technical aspect.

Whilst I still respect and admire what he has done, I never look to his photographs for inspiration. Avedon on the other hand is just short of God for me.

So I can really understand why HCB does nothing for my wife. I like Avedon as well. I went to his exhibition in Berlin. His images are amazing. I am a big fan of his homeless series. Still I am inspired by HCB. He worked in uncontrollable places and managed to capture amazing moments with great compositions. I get your point that HCB are almost too perfect to be emotional.

I took one image which is not in focus and crisp but I like it a lot because of the emotional aspect. They are VERY emotional to me!

I mean, his geometry is probably always perfect, yes. But what is wrong about that and how it can diminish the emotional value? I am convinced it can greatly contribute to emotional aspect of an image. I love HCB, he is one of my most favourite artists.

As well as Avedon. They are both great masters. And not just them. There are many others as well. Like in painting. It would have been awfully, awfully sad if we had only one or two great artists. Art is as huge as the world itself. There are many stars in that sky. But Art is very subjective, too. I just grew a little weary of everything being so perfect all the time. I just prefer something else…I grew into something else.

I think it was Dirk who said it. I understand what you mean. I also grow in an out of things in Art and Life. Sometimes I go through the same gates more than once. And why not?

You cherish what touches you at the moment. That moment may last a lifetime or may disappear tomorrow. You never know. Life is spontaneous. Most of them are great in composition, as it was often his primary concern. But many were full of imperfections. He even made a well-known statement about it. There were other flaws, both technical and even compositional at times. I even find some of his pictures simply boring to my taste.

Does it speak to you in any way? Does it make you wish or want to be there? Does it make you ask, why? Is the picture above powerful or is it just another pretty picture? It's composed well. It has a nice curved line on the bottom. Do you have a sense of isolation? Does it make you feel anything? Part of what makes a picture powerful is how it makes you feel.

Again, this is all subjective. This is not objectively a powerful picture. It's a cliche, but beauty and power is in the eye of the beholder. What about this picture? Does it speak to the eternal struggle of life? Does it speak to the environment? Is it referring to the importance of our roots and the need for a strong foundation? Or is it just a picture of a tree growing sideways?

How about this picture? It's lacking in contrast. The sky is blown out. It's soft. It's lacks that tack-sharp focus that photographers go after.

You don't know these people. But do you get a sense of what's going on? Is there enough information here to let your mind wander and wonder and recall similar experiences in your youth or your adult life?

Does the fact that it is black and white make it powerful or does that take away from any meaning that may be derived from it? Finally, what about this picture?

Of course it's powerful. It's a picture of Batman! He's pretty powerful. But does the fact that the subject is powerful make this a powerful picture? Is there a story here? Does it give you a sense of purpose? Is there any meaning here?

Your viewers will give your pictures power. What your viewers bring to a picture before they see it has a lot to do with whether or not it is powerful in their eyes. I can say that the picture of Batman is powerful and you can disagree. I think I've made it clear that there is no definite answer to the question posed in this article. And it would be unfair of me to simply leave it at that and end the article here.

As a photographer, you can do some things that will affect your viewers' reactions to your pictures. Most importantly, tell a story with your picture. Don't just take a picture and move on. Study your subject. Look at it from different angles. What is it about your subject that drew you to it in the first place? Are you sharing that in your picture? Are you using light or is light using you? Have you considered your composition?

Can you get higher or lower to show us a different vantage point? Is your background helping or hurting the story you are trying to tell?

I can tell you one of the hardest things I deal with as a photographer is that I include my own personal experience in the story of some of my pictures. Quite often, I find myself sharing pictures that I think are powerful simply because of the effort I made to get the picture. I think, incorrectly, that my viewers will understand that I went through a lot of effort to get to a location or to wait for a moment to get a picture. Practice being patient, and remember to try to anticipate the best moment at which to engage the shutter button.

A Clear Subject — Great photographs generally have a very clear idea of what the core subject of the photograph is. If you find that when you frame an image the subject is unclear then try taking out any unnecessary elements.

Sometimes simplifying the image is the best way to improve it. Try experimenting with these different elements to see what works for you. Good luck! About the Author: Matt Foden Photography mattfoden. Join over , photographers of all experience levels who receive our free photography tips and articles to stay current:. Indeed, light is the most important in a photography. And, of course, your skillz of playing with the light.

I tried to play with on a clear morning in the major train station from Bucharest. Anyway, the other elements depend on what kind of photography you practice.

If you make photojornalism for example, I think the sense of timing is more important than the composition. How interesting.

I just came up with something similar as a principle, but in a different light and approach. For a photograph to pass the threshold out of mediocrity it needs to have at least these characteristics:. Should evoke emotion in viewers unrelated to the work. Should be technically well executed.

Composition, processing, presentation etc. Must transcend the commonplace.