My Prints ---- My Website ---- The Shutterbugs ---Fred Miranda ---- Nature Photographers ----Naturescapes

What IS a GOOD photo?

Hot in the heels of my previous journal entry titled "What IS a beautiful photo" which examined stereotypes with regards to portraits and often the rudeness and blindness of some people and the comments that they leave on a photograph, comes this! For this edition, I wish to examine a few things and do a breakdown and analysis, on "What IS a good photo?"

  It seems here on DA, which I do NOT consider a professional photography place by ANY stretch (I wanted to get THAT out from the get go!) there is a type of mentality among most, and almost all, (dare I say 90%) that a good photo contains subject matter what they are interested in. You, my watchers, have no idea how many times I have heard "Oh it's nice but I don't like cars". Since when does someone have to "LIKE" a subject to make it a great photo? This is worrysome trend among those who are fresh to the artistic form of photography, I fear. But then again, I won't generalize either, because I have gotten it and also seen it on others works from people who are certainly established shooters.

  The False Prophet of Hope-- Can you stop and imagine for one second if we only shot things we were interested in? I shoot everything, subject matter aside, I have an entire collection of photography that has never seen the light of day here on DA, commercial orientated stuff, mostly...portraits, etc. I shoot because I love to shot....period. Isn't that what photography is about? The camera? The technique? The capturing of the image itself? Yes it is. I think the entire "I am not interested in this pic because the subject matter doesn't interest me" attitude stretches maybe from the same attitude that says "I didn't bring my camera with me because I didn't think this would be interesting/think there wouldn't be anything good to shoot" attitude. Ya know what? A good photographer FINDS things to shoot, every time. regardless of where they are at. There is always something to be caught in the lens. No matter the circumstance, no matter the place, no matter the scene.

Stuck in the Middle-- Granted I suppose people will be drawn to things that interest them, but ask yourself, when was the last time you walked out of your lil 'feel comfortable' personal space and browsed other galleries on DA? Browse a gallery you normally wouldn't browse....and try to get in the mindset of "what makes this unique? What makes it good? What are it's technically strong aspects?" Leave the "subject matter coat at the door" and put yourself in the photographers position. When you do this, you not only in terms of how you see things, you mature as a photographer as well.

Just my 2¢ for what it's worth!
--John