Good vs. Great

[andrew_hutchinson]

I am a good photographer, but I am not a great photographer. This has been

asked before, but google searching doesn't pull up anything. I've even asked

this question to my Instructors at school, and the answer is usually a terse

"Lighting."

 

So, my question: What separates good photography from great photography?

[fullmetalphotograper]

Time; Will it stand the test of time.

[my site]

A great image is one that invokes a strong emotional response in the viewer. The emotion can be sorrow, happiness, even anger, but the viewer must be affected. Lighting might make a great photograph technically, but a well lit, boring image is not a great photograph. A potentially great photograph might be ruined by poor lighting, but good lighting alone will not make a great photograph.

 

Great photography is produced by the vision of the photographer. The ability to see the story in a scene and understand what angle to shoot from makes a big difference.

 

There is no single, definitive answer to your question. If you want to be a great photographer, seek to see things through your eyes and the lens and learn to project what you see to the photographic palette in your mind's eye. Shoot with purpose and foresight.

 

jw

[brucecahn]

Andrew: I wish I knew the answer. A great photograph does something to you when you first see it. Adams' Moonrise, Weston's best pepper (forget the number), Cartier Bresson's man jumping over a puddle, are all great photographs. Even those guys could not produce work on that level consistently. So maybe a great photograph is only possible with the cooperation of the universe. Any way I would not worry about it, just keep working and being self critical and you will reach it eventually, even if it takes a few more lifetimes.

[jtk]

Marketing.

[.th]

i agree with bruce (mostly), that the photographs he mentioned are indeed great. but all of them have become such cliches*) (for the lack of a better word), namely because of their greatness, and therefore ,. ehh, "ungreat"? perhaps because they're great for so many,...??

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to namedrop a little, then you have photographers like, say, r. adams, t. richardson, struth, the bechers, eggleston (for some war with the obvious,) and to pick a little from hear and there) and many feel that their work is great to some extent. and maybe saved by the lack of mass photomedia, but i have the feeling that most of these names have not (yet?) reached the cliche status of a. adams, etc...

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now where am i going with all this?,... ohwell,.. but unlike bruce i'm sort of glad i don't know the answer. and that my sense for greatness floats, somehow. high on my top ten list of greats at the moment is alec soth's niagara (see alecsoth.com). not because the images are so fantastic (which they are though - imo), but because they speak to me.

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*) pls don't flame me for using the word cliche about adams etc.. i said "for the lack of a better"...

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in good spirit.... .th

[twmeyer]

Yeah, Niagara is high on my list, too. <p>"<i>the photographs he mentioned are indeed great. but all of them have become such cliches*) (for the lack of a better word)</i>"<p>Try "classic". A rip off imitation of a classic would be a cliche'... t

[yann1]

Invent something new, something that wasn't done before, that will become a reference for other photographers in the future. Before that, imitate what has been done before, then find your style, and maybe...

[fate_faith_change_chains]

Commitment and dedication is the one thing that all the great ones had / have in

common, in any field. So maybe it's just that.

[k5083]

When we were reading Shakespeare back in high school, some of my friends commented that they found Shakespeare irritating because he used too many cliches.

 

The point being, I guess, that becoming a cliche represents canonization into true greatness; the closest to immortality that an artist gets.

 

Maybe it is worth distinguishing three terms to which "good" or "great" might be applied: photograph, photography, photographer.

 

I'm confident that I can identify a good or great photograph, as can the society around me. The exemplars cited thus far satisfy me as great.

 

I'm not sure what good or great "photography" means. Does it refer to a body of work whose average rating would be good or great, or with a higher frequency of good or great photographs than other bodies of work? Is it a reference to some common aesthetic or technical trait running through a body of work? Already it gets amorphous.

 

I'm even less sure what a "good photographer" is. I think it's one who provides for his family, doesn't beat his wife or cheat on his taxes, and donates to worthy causes. The only other definition I can think of is someone who has taken more than the usual number of good photographs and can be expected to continue doing so, which doesn't really advance us much beyond what is a good or great photograph.

 

Because of all this fuzziness I tend to be more comfortable talking about goodness and greatness on a picture-by-picture basis.

[john_hughes4]

I think that great photography requires the luck(or the oppurtunity)to be in the right place, at the right time,to realise it and to adapt to the conditions your photo making machine,whilst trying to give out character style,all of which must be apprieciated by the viewer.Thats a great deal to much for me.

[rene gm]

Emotional impact!

[geof finch]

It really depends on what or who is your benchmark. There have been 'great' photographers whose work I really don't personally like, but were given the title by art critics etc...

So were they 'great' ? ..in my eyes, well, not really. But they deserve praise for being 'good' at their personal style.

There are differing thoughts, some say that we have to have had exhibits and have our work 'recognised' but I have never had a need to do that. I am quite content with comments from friends and from clients that pay me. So, somewhere in between someone has to make an assessment of our work.

I think it also incorporates my personal assessment and honesty towards my own work - I know if my work is good when comparing it to others, and I know that my work still has a long way to go to become known as 'great'....

[michael_bizon]

Don't buy into any of that,,,, A good photographer takes good photos and heads home,

satisfied with the image. A great photographer will keep working it until their death, trust

me, may sound funny but there are some photographers I have met who have been

working on an image for 4 or 5 years and still believe they haven't caught the image that

they believe exists, these are the people who are not interested in making deadlines or

marketing or any of that, they want to capture the image, eveything else is secondary.

[gale]

I beleive a good deal of luck in involved. The skill of a great photographer knows what to do to make the most of the luck.

 

Dave

[Doug Keller]

It's personal, but great leads you to a higher level of consciousness about your life. Somehow, the art helps to make new connections which complete you as a person; which make you more like yourself; instead of some carbon copy of what others think you should be.

[jim_horton]

"I beleive a good deal of luck in involved. The skill of a great photographer knows what to do to make the most of the luck. "

 

I agree with this quote to an extent--I've become somewhat jaded with some--especially more recent--photos because so much luck and editing is involved--even if by editing I mean looking at the 10 pics shot by the motor drive in 3 seconds, and choosing the one that happened to capture the right look.

 

Nowadays, it's not like you have Ansel Adams waiting until the sun moved to the right spot to create the right shadow, and then shooting, or say with sports--the photographer clicking at the right moment the person sliding into second had the right look on his face. So often the motor-drive just spits out a few dozen pics and the real work is in first choosing the right one of the bunch, then photoshopping it, and (please excuse the cynicism) letting the viewer assume he or she waited paitiently until the right moment and saw the beauty just then and shot at the one and only moment.

 

But bottom line, while I believe some luck is involved, even in the case of choosing the one of a dozen pics in a 3 second period--there still is a bit of artistic talent involved in actually knowing which one captures the moment the best. Then of course the darkroom (or Lightroom these days) skill in editing plays a role.

--Jim

[christopher_graham1]

I don't know the answer. I have come to a point where I can examine a photograph. Look at the details. Pull it apart and find all the things I don't like. I have somethings that I look at and say this is good because or this needs work because. But what is it to look through that eyepiece and see an image and think this needs to be shot. I wouldn't so much consider myself good even. I have liked some of my photos but none of them have made me excited. I know some photographers that take the most simple photos. Minimalistic all the way but in their minimalism there is power. I have seen some others take complex photos where everything comes together. I seem to only find dull to mediocre subjects that I shoot in whatever light I have. I would say though that a great photographer like a great artist is one that may or may not be technically perfect but one that creates a story or emotion through their work. I am getting the mechanical side down pretty well. The part I have trouble with is the artistic side. I think the problem is some of that can be learned but some of it can't. There are people that can learn how to perfectly recreate a scene with a camera or a brush but never learn how to tell a story with it. You look and say good picture or good painting but you don't feel anything. I agree with the others. It is feeling. even some cliche images envoke a feeling that actually makes that image more desirable than someone else's. The thing is you have learned the skills and techniques but can you tell a story. It has to draw you in make you a part of it. Like a good story makes you imagine being in that scene or situation. I hope you find it. Because I am not even really sure what it means.

[jtk]

Enlightenment favors the prepared mind.

 

Seek ye the Lord when He is near.

 

Practice makes perfect.

 

Repetition is the mother of learning.

 

Location, location, location.

 

Ansel drove a Cadillac, lived in paradise (San Francisco and Monterey), traveled to other paradises. He was no good at urban documentary or "banal." If he'd lived in the Midwest, he'd have left or never achieved recognition. Aaron Siskind on the other hand, a Midwesterner, achieved his greatness without fame, partially because he was politically driven. In other words, complexity may contribute.

[garry_b]

The way I see it, there is no real, concrete answer to such a question. I mean 2 + 2 does = 4, the angle of incidence does = the angle of reflection, but is there any objective, quantitative way to measure greatness? I have read most of the responses above and I agree with what people have said... A great image should be able to stand the test of time, evoke emotion, touch the soul, and do all of the things that the most memorable of visual art can do. I also agree that when we use famous names and famous photographs as examples of greatness, we must be careful not to forget that the one moment of greatness realized by one master artist is almost always the result of a lifetime of dedication and faith. For me, making art on a daily basis is usually just a way to pass the time. I do it everyday with a prayer that today, at any moment, I might make an inevitable (and exciting) step forward on my own evolutionary path as an artist.

 

One of my favorite artists, Minor White said...

 

"No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen."

[jtk]

Gary, thanks.

[jennifer_durand]

You may want to read this older thread on this site :

 

What makes a photo GREAT?

Nicole York, May 03, 2007; 02:08 a.m.

[adam_buteux]

what people think of you...

one person's crap is anothers great

 

but in the larger scheme of things

 

Those people are great are the people we say are great - ie MARKETING

[lee_crump]

Andrew:

Every answer so far has one commonality. None of them agree with any other answer. Trying to produce a work that a whole comunity will think of as great is like trying to herd cats! Ultimatly YOU must decide what is and is not great.

Phrhaps many people will agree with you. Pehaps few will. If I were to make photographs that I hated but most people loved I would not find this fufilling.

[Doug Keller]

Yes, it's personal ... as I typed. :) But, who's to say that your hatred isn't a sign of life? Sometimes hatred means you're getting close; close to revealing another side of yourself that you didn't know existed? ... or close to creating another side of yourself that no-one's ever known?