Tag Archives: Elliott Porter

What is a Good Photograph?

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Just what defines a good photograph is, and will always be, a topic of heated discussion with serious photographers; and in my opinion, is one that is certainly worth regular examination because, simply put, a “good photograph” is what those who enjoy this medium want to make.

There are, of course, those that believe a good photograph must capture an image absolutely true to life, while others might say it’s totally about how creative the photographer is, however, if one relies on they number of “likes” they receive on social media sites a good photograph probably depends on the beauty of the subject.

When I taught photography I told my students that a good photograph includes acceptable composition, exposure, and an interesting perspective.

I also said that a good photograph makes us have a connection with, or think about the subject, and might help us understand what the photographer feels about that subject; and if successful, evokes some kind of mood, whether good or bad.

American photographer Ansel Adams said, “A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” And he elaborates, “Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: “Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print – my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey – from the subject before me?”

And Adams reminds us, “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”

Another of my favorite scenic photographers, Elliott Porter, commented, “You learn to see by practice. It’s just like playing tennis; you get better the more you play. The more you look around at things, the more you see. The more you photograph, the more you realize what can be photographed and what can’t be photographed. You just have to keep doing it.”

Vogue magazine Editorial photographer Irving Penn, wrote, “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”

What is a good photograph? That might only be in the “eye of the beholder”. If one is a camera club member there will be rules on how a photograph is judged. And when I graded my students’ work I was mostly interested in their knowledge.

Sometimes we see a photograph that moves or inspires us, makes us feel, think and dream. And when a photographer is able to convey that to viewers he or she has truly made a good photograph.

What Inspired or Inspires you to do Photography     

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Inspiring Viewpoint 2

Palouse river canyon 2

 

 

 

A member of a photography site I frequented some time ago posed the question, “What inspired you?”

I took that to mean what inspired you as a photographer?

One would think that a question on a photographer’s website page would be a great opportunity for photographers to talk about those that encouraged, influenced, or affected their development in this exciting medium.

Anticipating discussions on celebrated photographers who had inspired others on that forum to get into photography I looked forward to reading members replies. However, I was surprised and disappointed with how few took the time to respond, and those that did seemed silly by only naming long gone painters like Rembrandt. Rembrandt? Not one member on that photographer’s forum mentioned another photographer.

Unable to contain myself I wrote, “I was inspired to do photography by photographers not painters. Those I admired and inspired me at different times include Man Ray, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Arnold Neuman, Gregory Heisler, Sarah Moon, Sheila Metzner and Annie Leibovitz. I must also mention scenic photographers like Elliott Porter, Ansel Adams, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston.”

Today I sent a friend a picture I had taken of him and several other friends in the early 1970s. I remembered at that time I was rarely without a camera, and how frustrating that was to some that just got tired of my constant picture taking. That’s when I recalled the preceding post on inspiration and my response.

I suppose there are painters and sculptors I like, but do they inspire my photography? No not really – I look to photographers for that. The first photographer and artist that inspired me all those years ago was Man Ray. It was after viewing his fascinating pictures that I began to study photography.

However, it is the second photographer on my inspiration list, Richard Avedon that I’ll quote here, “I think many photographers create in order to survive, both emotionally as well as financially. For a photographer, taking a photo is just as important as breathing”.

Sometimes when I see a photograph that I like I get excited. I might not be able to go to the location or find the subject of that picture, but it still makes me want to grab my camera and begin searching for something. I could say that photograph inspired me to create one of my own in my own personal way.

In my list to that forum I forgot to include the famous Canadian nature photographer and author, Freeman Patterson. I think any photographer interested in photographing gardens or landscapes will find inspiration in his photographs and his writing. Patterson wrote,  “Seeing, in the finest and broadest sense, means using your senses, your intellect, and your emotions. It means encountering your subject matter with your whole being. It means looking beyond the labels of things and discovering the remarkable world around you.”

There are many things and people that inspire me, too many to write down here, but the original post was on a photographer’s forum, so it’s photographers not painters that I thought about. There are many photographers past and present whose images are worth searching for, looking at, learning from, and of course, gaining inspiration from that will surely affect one’s own photography.

I always enjoy everyone’s comments. Please don’t hesitate if you have a moment.

Thanks, John

Looking into the Landscape

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Landscape photographer Elliot Porter once said, “Sometimes you can tell a large story with a tiny subject”.

On the weekend I bundled up against the damp, windy cold and headed down to the frozen shore along the South Thompson River not far from my home. My intention was to photograph the Pritchard Bridge that spanned the river and I had hoped to see large chunks of ice jammed against the pillars.

I like photographing architecture, and any kind of structure, whether it is buildings, fences, and yes, bridges, is just plain fun for me. I look for how the light plays on stone, wood, metal, glass, and any other building material and how it creates shadows and features, like ice, that interact with the structure. However, to my disappointment, the large chunks of ice I had noticed a few days earlier were gone. The strong wind that constantly blew along the river valley must have cleared all the ice from around the bridge pillars.

I wandered along under the bridge looking for interesting angles. I had mounted my camera with a 16-85mm lens thinking that its wide view would give me an interesting perspective.  My intention was to photograph the bridge in a fashion that would look good when converted to black and white. I looked for shadows and highlights that would create enough contrast to give depth and dimensionality to black and white images. Much of the time I see black and white images that have been changed to monotone without regard to the tonality of the subject. All I see are flat tones of black and white with no relationship to the actual colour quality of the full colour original. There are several programs that convert image files to black and white while keeping that tonality, PhotoShop among them, but my preference because of the control and finality is Silver Efex Pro from www.niksoftware.com.

I walked along the shore and crossed under the bridge looking for creative opportunities and trying to find interesting perspectives of the bridge.  Eventually, however, what caught my eye were features protruding from the sand like posts and branches, and I began looking down and along the shore instead of up and that’s when I really started to take pictures that were working for me. There were shells, small bits of water worn wood, a half-buried rusty oil drum, fish skeletons and much more, like an overturned shoe in the sand. I changed lenses to an 18-200mm to have more focal length and a narrower view for ground level shots of posts and other revealed objects sticking up from the sand.

The light was perfect and its low angle created intriguing shadows that added definition to each of the subjects I selected as I walked along the sandy beach. Each small object, in Eliot Porter’s words, had its own “story” and I tried to show something in each that was more than just a snap shot of an object on the beach.

Often we forget that there is more in the landscape than majestic peaks and expanses of fields. I began by ignoring the “tiny subjects” thinking only the bridge would be worth photographing. If this was a garden, then I would immediately contemplate close-up photography and grab my macro lens, but it took me a while to realise how much more there was to photograph on that frozen river beach.  Soon, I will be walking through the sand with my camera again, this time keeping my eye on the ground, and I will be dressed even warmer.

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