Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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What is a good photo? (alien.top)

submitted 2 years ago by OleBentsBallonCirkus@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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So I'm going to Paris in a few weeks, and I will be bringing my new 70-200mm f4 for the trip.

However, i have this thought in my head that I don't really know what to photograph. I usually take pictures of people and situations with people in them, as those are memories I want to hang on to.

When I see a lot of street photographers on YouTube etc, I feel like they take some well framed and pretty, but also irrelevant images. Would they ever go back to an image of a busdriver they snapped at an intersection?

I'm not putting those people down, but I personally have a hard time seeing the real value in that. I guess that simply making a nice shot is a great feeling. And a really nice shot might o ly happen once every 1000 images.

But what makes a nice image to you? Can the image stand alone? Or does it have to be part of a series with a certain theme to it?

I'm looking for some fresh perspectives on street photography that will get me excited for my trip :)

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[–] manjamanga@alien.top 1 points 2 years ago

I feel like they take some well framed and pretty, but also irrelevant images

They feel irrelevant to you. They may feel the same about some of your photos, while you may consider them to be your best work. What makes someone enjoy a photograph will vary wildly from person to person.

What makes a good photo indeed? I look at Henri Cartier-Bresson photos and some of them just don't do anything for me.
And sometimes, I see a shot with 10 likes from some anonymous guy on Flickr and consider it an absolute masterpiece.

And then there are photos that no one would look at twice, weren't it for the context they're inserted in. Some photos stand alone. Some photos owe their meaning and value to a bigger context.

There is no objective criteria to decide what a good photo is, especially from an artistic standpoint. I think this is a very important fact to internalize for any artist, photographer or otherwise.