What makes a good photograph?
By Jason Moriber • Oct 2nd, 2009 • Category: Loose EndsDuring filmmaker Astra Taylor’s interview with philosopher Avital Ronell they touch on photography and film as a capturing, an archiving, and a deadening. Ronell describes taking images as:
“…a kind of concession to a traumatic theory of existence, which is to say you are not truly present in your experience. It first has to be captured or deadened and then presented to you from the Other…what you see in the photograph gets reconstituted as what may have happened.”
Right, that doesn’t sound very sexy but its poignant stuff. If an artist can more deeply understand what makes their work “good” ideally they can make their work even better. My belief is, to make better work, the artist needs to escape the “deadened” nature of “capturing images,” and strive for “creating images.” So what makes a good photograph? What makes it attractive? What makes it professional-quality?
There are probably dozens of answers to this question, but what seems to be the answer is how “alive” the image is, how much can it stand on it’s own, does it have “a life of its own.” I’ve drawn this quick matrix to help define good/bad/mediocre images…
The coordinates on the matrix are:
- Vibrant: The image is alive, it speaks to you, moves you.
- Lifeless: Flat, no emotional draw, yawn.
- Arresting: I can’t take me eyes off of it (this doesn’t equal “good,” shocking images can be arresting).
- Mundane: This looks like everything else.
The imagery I find the strongest lives in the top right corner. I have a personal preference for images that take the mundane and make them vibrant, so I tend to hang out in the bottom right hand corner.
Where do your images fit?
Jason Moriber is a veteran product/project/marketing manager, underground artist/musician, and online community developer, Jason expertly builds/produces/manages clients' projects, programs, and campaigns.
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