WHAT MAKES A GOOD PHOTOGRAPH AND HOW DO I TAKE ONE? [Part 1 of 2]

This post and much of its content (aside from some small recent updates) was originally presented to a local camera club in Sydney, the North Sydney Camera Club. It was 2012 I think. I'd been approached to give a talk/presentation and at the time I happened to be thinking about all this stuff anyway...

Many years ago when I was preoccupied with landscape photography I arrived at a standstill. I had done it all as far as landscapes goes, and I couldn't see a way forward with my work. Up until that point I'd been largely driven by the common things that most believe constitutes a good photograph. I'd perfected those things and yes many commented on my work and how great it was, but I was restless, dissatisfied and needed a way forward. I knew I could take 'good' photos but in my own opinion my work wasn't what I'd call 'great'.

What I discovered all those years ago has stayed with me to this day and still helps me move forward when I'm stuck and bored with my shit. As you'll see, it's irrelevant that I was shooting landscapes when I did this soul searching.

I should emphasise that this is not a set of rules to follow and I'm not telling anyone what to do, I'm just sharing what I learnt, and it was my own personal take on things at that time...

GOOD PHOTOGRAPHS

They're good photos, but they're not 'great' photos. They're good because they follow the common rules for good photos, namely...

good photograph = rule of thirds + impressive, beautiful subject matter + correct exposure + good light

There are other rules, but these seem to be the common recurring ones by which we judge photographs.

VOILA!

Trouble is, if you're the type pf person who always wants to keep advancing themselves you're gonna eventually get very bored. Once you've mastered the above, and they're all technical aspects, you'll start thinking and searching for something more.

I thought about it all a bit more and looked at myself more closely.

Self awareness is one of the most important tools a photographer can have.

TAKE 2!

I’ve always been principally a left brain type of person. A background of science and engineering has seen to that…

I kind of realised somehow that my photography was based heavily around left-brained, structured technical thinking.

So to move forward, I did actually use my left brain to dissect the issue but only to hopefully arrive at a point where I could free myself of the rigour and sterility of that approach...

Kind of like: use it so you can lose it.

I thought about this angle more and thought about what are some of the things that constitute the left and right brain approaches.

Those are just a few things that go with left and right brain but they're enough for me to say confidently that yes! I was principally using my left brain to take photos!

Whether any of my thinking around this would make any sense to a psychoanalyst is irrelevant. It was at least a way of moving forward with my thinking in a different direction.

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In the next article I talk about what I did to try and force my brain to think more on the right side...