What Makes A Good Photograph?

The correct answer is it depends on who's asking. What works for me won't necessarily work for you, or your neighbour, family or the dog (he wants a fire hydrant). For example, lots of people insist that a photograph have a centre of interest, even if it isn't in the centre. Some of my most popular photographs don't so clearly it isn't just me who feels this is not essential.

So given this significant limitation to my ability to answer the question, let me make it very personal and say what works for me.

There is no single characteristic of a great photograph which makes it a winner. Were that so, the lovely tonality of large format contact prints would make every single one a winner - trust me, they aren't. It could be an interesting subject - but poor photographs of interesting subjects don't work either. But telling you all the things it isn't can't be very helpful so we'll quit while we are behind and concentrate on what it is instead.

Let me say that a good photograph is interesting. That may seem self evident, but I think there is something to be learned here. Can we agree that there are great photographs of fairly mundane (dare I say uninteresting) subjects. Is it possible that the dirty underside of a railway bridge, something you might cycle past daily and not pay attention to, could actually be interesting. What about peppers, dead birds, rocks, weeds, grass, cracked roads, etc. etc.? So somehow it would seem possible to make an interesting picture of an uninteresting subject. How is that done?

The interst could come from showing details that aren't normally seen (or more likely just ignored), or isolating parts of something to make interesting patterns or shapes. The interest could come from comparing two things - I think of Ansel Adams picture of fresh grass in front of a burned stump - alive and dead. The interest can come from seeing places we have never been to, or a time of day at which we are normally tucked in bed so miss out on.

Think of portraits. A picture of a beautiful woman (or drop dead gorgeous man if you lean that way), merits a quick look but normally most adults don't give it much time, don't tear it out of a magazine and don't frame it - yet there are portraits which cause us to do all of those things. Migrant Mother (by Dorothea Lange - so you can find it on the net) is a beautiful portrait and one could say that the woman shows a special kind of beauty but really, it's a picture of a tired, worn out woman who's given up hope, yet has the strength to struggle on. It is such striking image of those things though that the photograph is beautiful even if the person photographed isn't.

A news photograph might not be considered beautiful at all, but a good one is certainly interesting - interesting because it shows something we haven't seen, or is so representative of the problem that it serves as an icon for our feelings about a situation - say war, or natural disaster, politics or whatever.

As my particular interest is in landscapes and as my background is in black and white , lets limit our discussion to this. What makes a landscape picture interesting?

In Europe, landscapes are often photographed with high speed film in 35 mm. cameras and the results can be wonderful, so it isn't the format that's the answer. Prints poorly reproduced in books can still be interesting so it isn't print quality (at least not always).

Our eyes read photographs. We may read a page left to right, top to bottom, but in looking at photographs, we start at the centre and then wander around, following lines, stopping at points of interest and wandering right out of the photograph if there is not enough to hold us. The centre of interest can be anywhere but if there are not elements to support it, the eye quickly moves on and loses interest.

I'll now take you through some specific photographs that are considered classics and discuss what makes them work. As I don't have permission to reproduce the images, I'm simply going to provide the link to the sites.

Pepper # 30, Edward Weston

The image consists of some light coloured blobs, a line down the middle and a dark background. It's just a pepper, but the way the light reflects is wonderful, the shapes are interesting. I have always thought of it as a nude woman with her bottom to the lower right and her back extending upwards but looking at it today I also see a right hand grasping something and the thumb on top. The shapes themselves even without sexual inferernces are interesting. Despite the limitations of the internet and book reproduction, all images of this print look good and some look wonderful so the fact that it was shot on 8X10 isn't really relevent.

It was photographed in a funnel and you can see the circular scores in the tin funnel at the bottom of the image, giving the pepper a base and allowing our eyes to come back into the centre.

The dark background shows off the pepper nicely, a well lit scene would not have been nearly as interesting. The reflections on the surface of the peper are not so white as to be glaring yet are bright enough to be dramatic.

Notice a third of the way down the left hand side you can see a little of the background letting you know the pepper is not in isolation. Even this line keeps your eye in the image.

Look at the knobby ends of the folds of the pepper - they face each other so your eye can't wander off. S bends are generally attractive and this image has several.

Though it varies depending on your monitor, the shadows while deep are not black - no underexposure here - in fact it was something like a two hour exposure due to slow film, low light and bellows factor this close with the 8X10.

Well, that's probably enough discussion for tonight but I think I might just pick some other classic images and discuss why they work. Let me know if this is something you find useful. Leave a comment or email me directly. My email is george dot barr at shaw dot ca (you will have to type the real thing in).

Good shoting, see you next time.

George