What makes a great photograph?

Perhaps it is easier to answer the question "what makes a NOT so great photograph?"
Many say that a photo out of focus, or one that is to dark or to bright is not a good photograph. These two qualities of a photo, the focus and the exposure are arguably the two most important tools we have as photographers. We use mainly four settings on our cameras and lenses to control these. They are the aperture or f-stop of the lens, the shutter-speed, focusing distance and the ISO. The focal length of the lens is another important factor, but I will not cover "right" or "wrong" focal lengths for all the different kinds of subjects in this article.

When we learn photography, we practice putting focus on the right things. We practice how to get the correct exposure by using difference shutter speeds, apertures and ISO-settings. But what if we need to focus AWAY from the right things, and expose incorrectly for a message to come across in the photo?

Back to the question, what makes a great photograph? To get any closer to the answer of that question, we first need to determine what the purpose of a photograph is. Is it to mirror the world exactly as the camera-electronics and lens sees it? I would say NO. That would be like saying that the purpose of a book was to mirror the world as the pen, the typewriter, the computer keyboard or the printing-press sees it.

What is the purpose of a painting? To mirror the world as the brush and canvas sees it? Or is its purpose to mirror what the painter sees? Neither I would say. The purpose does not lie within the camera or the canvas.



The purpose of a photograph lies within the photographer.

Let us say that we make lots and lots of photographs of our kids, or parents, or friends, or pets. Why would we do that? I would say it is simply because we want to look at the pictures in one year, five years, fifty years, and then remember. Just like how smell can bring back memories and strong feelings, pictures can to. So the purpose of a photograph can be : to bring forth feelings, memories, and perhaps even fantasies.

When press photographers publish pictures from war-zones or areas with severe hunger and death, what is the purpose of those photos? Its the same, they are to bring forth feelings like fear, distaste, understanding, compassion and empathy.

If the purpose of a photograph is to bring forth feelings and memories, the focus and the exposure must work together to evoke the feelings or memories that the photographer intends. A great photograph expresses the intended message to the viewer.

The "intended" message could be so many things of course. It could be that the photographer wants to leave the message open to a broad variety of interpretations. Or the opposite, only one specific feeling like for example "peace of mind" (if that is one feeling). Using different combinations of aperture, shutter speed and focus on the exact same scene, we can give the viewer a wide range of different feelings. How to use the camera settings to convey our intended feeling is the "secret", and practice makes perfect.

And on that note, a quote may be in order : "Your first ten thousand photos are your worst" - Henri Cartier-Bresson.