How people look at and judge pictures

[table1349]

Since I have long subscribed to the K.I.S.S. principle as often as possible my criteria for judging a photograph is also simple.

Do I like it? Yes. No.


It's either one or the other. Job done.

 

[raphaelaaron]

the dangerous matter is really trying to compartmentalize the subjectivity of photography. an image is beautiful for various reasons, even ones not expressible into human interpretation. just the way it synapses in our mind can either herald it as art or denounce it as trash.

a great image, no matter how well executed and polished it comes out, can still have a number of offenses--even to the person who admits that it was technically done well.

for one, i still think images do it for me with beauty and content. yeah, there's that sense that it needs to have all the other aspects to it (composition, exposure, etc.) but i feel the former tends to outdo the latter---but of course this is open to a vast amount of exceptions. and that's why it's all relative to begin with.

 

[amolitor]

Something that we see a lot of here on TPF is the "more experienced" photographer unable to see anything but technical details. I think there's a lot of commonality between the way a naive viewer and a truly experienced photographer views a photograph, a kind of holistic view that gets lost for a lot of semi-experienced enthusiasts.

The love of covered bridges, flowers, and naked girls is not so much an inexperienced photographer thing but an inexperienced viewer-of-photographs things, I think. A serious photographer will spend a lot of time looking at photographs, but so will a connoisseur of photographs. By looking at a lot of images, with serious intent, we begin to see the banality of the covered bridge, and want to see something more. These "something more" images also have some appeal to the naive viewer-of-photographs, but probably less. These viewers don't enjoy photographs that make demands on them, they want things that are easy to look at. I want things that DO demand my attention and effort, in photographs. I certainly do NOT want my sandwiches and shoes to make me work, so I completely understand the viewer-of-photographs who does not want their photographs to demand work of them.

The point is that the love for covered bridge photographs is OK. See also Professional Wedding Photographs and Professional Baby Photographs, some of which are churned out by professionals here on TPF! This stuff leaves me cold, and indeed fills me with mild horror. It is, however, what the public generally speaking wants. Pretty pictures that are easily accessible. Not one thing in the world wrong with that. Just not for me.