Impact!

[Torus34]

I've used the word 'impact' in several comments in the past. It's not a term which pops up often in discussions of photographs. Perhaps it's time to define what I mean when I use it.

There are all sorts of photographs: snapshots, record shots, landscapes, portraits, commercial spreads, fashion photographs, photojournalistic documentations, etc.

In almost all such categories there are shots which range from just plain bad to ho-hum to uh-huh to 'nice' to Wow!. It's the 'Wow!' prints which have 'impact'.

Examples: From The Family of Man - Nat Farbman's Bechuanaland photograph on P. 51 [photojournalism], Dan Wiener's photograph [portraiture] on P. 173, Al Chang's photojournalist shot, P. 149, W.C. Rauhauser's humorous print on P. 130, Ronny Jaques' print - which falls into no specific category -- P. 160 and the juxtaposition of the prints by Nat Farbman and Alfred Eisenstaedt on pages 120 & 121.

Whenever I look through this marvelous book, it's these prints [and several others] which bring me to a screeching halt. They have impact. They have something universal and important to say to me. I would be proud to have taken, in my entire lifetime, one single image with the impact of any one of these.

When I say that a good picture has something to say and a great print says something important, it's these which I have in mind.

Jim/Torus34

 

[Hertz van Rental]

In almost all such categories there are shots which range from just plain bad to ho-hum to uh-huh to 'nice' to Wow!. It's the 'Wow!' prints which have 'impact'.

We used to say Wow! pictures had 'stopping power'. When someone is flicking through a magazine (or an AD is going through your folio) if they pause at a picture then that picture has 'stopping power'. We liked to try and look over people's shoulders when they were browsing to see which pictures stopped them - partly to learn and partly in the hope it was one you had worked on. I got some funny looks and some interesting offers at book stands :mrgreen:

In teaching I started calling the bad and ho-hum shots 'so what?' pictures.
As in: "It's a picture of X. So what?" :lmao:

 

[GoM]

This just stopped me. The timing's flawless.

SI.com -> MLB Photos of the Week - #6

 

[Dylan]

That one is pretty incredible. I guess it's because we don't tend to see from that angle too often. I wonder if that was shot with one of those wire mounted camera's?