Interesting, Cedric! I think it is very difficult to apply scientific methodology to art practice. Applying science based principles to a problem by stating your hypothesis in advance of undertaking your experiments, does not mean that a different outcome is bad science. It is still good science, just with a different outcome than you anticipated. Art has the benefit of being a moving target. We can evolve. There is nothing wrong with having goals and objectives, but art should equally be about removing the blinkers and being open to the possibilities. I really enjoy your posts! Thank you for making me think....👍🏿
Thanks Soren. I agree, art isn't science. But to me there are 2 things you need to be able to evaluate to progress: where you want to be, and the value of what you create. Both are related but different.
If you can't define where you want to be, you can't decide what is interesting to you in order to get there. You just waste your time trying lots of things that aren't what you want to be (e.g. if you want to get academic recognition, becoming the best at getting IG likes isn't going to help you).
Then separately, if you can't define what you consider good art, you can't evaluate your own creations. If you can't evaluate your creations, you can't progress. And if you can't progress, you can never reach your goal (you wouldn't know you're there in the first place).
It doesn't mean you can't progress in a zigzag, with tangents and exploration. Just that you need to be able to tell what you think is good and what you want to achieve.
For example, I'm new at street photography. It just peaked my interest in the last few months. Before that I had no interest in it at all. So I've been looking at what's been done and why (both recent and classics), and I've decided what I consider good: in terms of goal, I want to make photos I like and I'd like my peers to like them too; in terms of individual photos, I'm starting to understand what I consider good, but I'm not there yet. I need to learn more. So I can't evaluate my own images and I can't know yet how to decide my path.
I completely agree with you, on most everything you say. You are allowing for the zigzag, you are going down the rabbit hole to see what you like in Humanist/Street photography. You know what is good in your view, and you are going after it! That is a great approach. And you may not agree, but in knowing what you like in others work, and recognizing what is good, you will store that, and when you see something that triggers those images in your minds eye, you are attentive to details, composition, light, etc. and you will more often than not get something that you will be happy with. Something that is good! All I am saying is that when you take off the blinkers, you will also notice that haystack on the horizon and make that photograph, though it may not be Humanist/Street photography, and that too can be good...
Five years ago, I explicitly set out on a 10-year photography journey to get "good" at photography. I intentionally didn't define what good was, knowing it would evolve. Perhaps I'll know when I get there (ha-ha - I probably won't).
As a photographer for whom meeting the needs of an audience comes a distant second, I focus on intent. What am I trying to achieve with this image, or this series of images or project?
While the definition of good may evolve, I certainly agree with you that you need something to focus your learning objectives and prioritise where you put your time - it's always better to have a destination in mind than not. Thank you for a great post Cedric.
After many years reading books talking about “what is photography” (see Stephen Shore’s and many others’) then came what’s good Photography (read “how to read a photograph” or “masters’ pics”) for at last knowing worse and worse about the whole stuff. The last trends make things even worse (if that’s possible): forget about composition, about perfection, actually about everything and get an out of date film roll, a crappy camera and light leaks. That’s the coolest
That's why you need a guide. If you decide what YOU think your goal is, you can ignore all the fads. They're not relevant to your goal (unless your goal is to be the best at following fads).
Or perhaps who needs a guide are those beginners and not so beginners lost in what called “the process”, aiming for a ridiculous film disposable camera and so on. Who benefits from all that?, not photography for sure, just opportunists selling the invention of the wheel. A real brain wash. Just denying evolution and dismissing experience
There is definitively room for everyone in photography and all approaches are valid. For some it's film (I can't understand the appeal, but some people like the chemicals, the physicality of negatives and prints), for others is crappy or P&S cameras (that's new, in the early 2000s it was Lomography and Baby lenses), for some it will be digital.
And ignoring the hardware, genres vary a lot, from abstract to landscapes, via different flavours of street, travel, portraits, documentary, etc. We each have our interests and what appeals to us. Which changes over time.
The problem with the internet is the amount of people who have a solution to sell you. The sea of people who know what you should like or do, and oh they just happen to have a Lr preset package or a photo workshop coming up for only $800. It's hard for beginners, and even confirmed photographers, to sift through the noise.
But if you spend some time thinking about what you want to achieve, you get a direction and help ignoring the irrelevant. That was my thinking behind the post. In my case I want to make photos that please me and I'd like to become good enough for people to reference me and my photos as being good in my field, like they do today with others. So, I don't care about hardware. I have old cameras that are plenty good enough (I'm the limiting factor, not them). I have a few because I like variety and there are cameras I've always wanted to play with. I know I need to become better before I outgrow them. That means that I don't care about anything that talks to me about hardware.
I don't care about likes and clicks, and subscribers. I'm on no social media platform other than subscack and I can't even tell you how many subscribers I have. I didn't start because I wanted people to venerate me, I started because I need to write to think about things and I thought others might also benefit from my ramblings.
I'm not interested in running a photography business of any kind, so I'm not interested in anyone discussing that.
That limits a lot what I even consider looking at: I like to see how people understand their photography and explore how differently people relate to their art. I might not even like their photos (e.g. I really struggle with most of the 70s and 80s Japanese collectives), but I'm interested in their motivation and steal some of their ideas. I like to see how people build their photos (e.g. composition). Everything else I'm not interested in because it won't help me reach my goal (e.g. sell your photos, increase your following, make money, what's the best gear for activity X, etc).
Sell photos, increase your following, make money. That has nothing to do with whether your photos are good or bad. There’s not actually room for everyone. Internet works by trends, anything out of that is marginal and addressed to disappear.
Great article as always, Cedric! I’m more or less in the same path as you as regards my definition of ‘good’. If I like it, is good to me. If other people also like it, I’m happy with it but if they don’t, it’s alright as well. I’m very demanding and strict towards myself in the attainment of what good is to me. If I’m not satisfied with it, it is not good. Not to me but also not to anybody else. I don’t know for sure if this is a right approach but it is how I do.
Nice one, Cedric. I embrace that "good" is simple individual progress. Competing with myself only, I judge my photos based on the question of "does this at minimum espouse all the principles that I've mastered so far?" If it doesn't, it's not good to me. If it does and also happens to add a new or beautiful, unexpected element, that's when it excites me and I head down a new path. Thanks for the prompt!
For me a good photograph has a compelling composition, interesting subject (not weird or unusual), depth of dimension through layering, and direction or flow, i.e. leading lines. Rich complimentary color palate, not over saturated. At least some of these to be a good photograph. Overall aesthetically pleasing to the eye, that holds a viewer's attention. (That will stop you scrolling.)
Your post contains quite a few enigmas I'm sure many of us know all too well. I don't know if it's possible to apply any methodology to the discovery of what's 'good', not just because it can differ greatly from one photographer to the next, but because there are so many intentions/goals involved in being a photographer, as you point out so well.
After decades of making photos, with many cameras and lenses, I've come to the conclusion that a photo is 'good' if it gets the message across the photog had in mind, even if it's a simple 'look how beautiful this is', the only condition being it needs to be about his/her own concept of beauty. I like to discuss concepts of beauty with other people, not just photographers. I still want to learn more, not so much in a technical sense, but about approaching and handling these notions. That's my reason for sharing photos. I would welcome an initiative to review or discuss methods and styles in photography.
It's sounds to me that your personal idea of good is to be able to transfer your message and to communicate your idea of beauty to the viewer. Tough goal but interesting.
How you do that, what techniques, styles, firms, medium, is up to you.
I don't disagree with your bottom line of the need to have a clear goal of what you want from your photography. My issue is that you have come to this conclusion through many years of experimenting, trying this and that. No human buys their first camera with a clear end goal in mind. I mean, they might have a goal, but two months into the process, if they have any artistic or creative sensibility at all, they will be open to new possibilities and the goal has changed, and the need for a different kind of lens or lighting etc rears its consumptive head. Just saying...I think rare is the person who knows what they want from the beginning. Only the uncertain journey will give you that knowledge over time.
Goal is not genre or style, though. I found my voice in landscape photography 20 years ago after experimenting with setup, style, process, etc. Now I've reached a point where I feel I've explored the genre enough and I want to try something new. So I'm starting street photography and I'm starting from scratch: I experiment with styles, subjects, setups, etc.
But my long term goal hasn't changed. I haven't decided one day to be the king of social networks, then a pro corporate photographer, then be a legend referenced by academics for the next 50 years. That you can decide early, before you know what your style, or even genre is.
Gear, style, process are there to experiment within your goal. The goal is just a direction or a guide. It doesn't limit what you do.
Great article and do I tend to agree with you Cedric. The personal satisfaction route is my goal with perhaps some peer recognition, but the challenge of this is to keep my prime goal of satisfaction in my mind and not be influenced by what might garner that peer recognition if it doesn't fit my style of photography.
To me that's the right way to do it: if your know what you want out of your photography, you can build a path there and ignore the noise. Then you can be happy.
Fascinating read Soren. I believe we are only as good as our knowledge and abilities allow us to be. That's why having a goal or a target is important. I find your scientific approach super interesting, great read!
Interesting, Cedric! I think it is very difficult to apply scientific methodology to art practice. Applying science based principles to a problem by stating your hypothesis in advance of undertaking your experiments, does not mean that a different outcome is bad science. It is still good science, just with a different outcome than you anticipated. Art has the benefit of being a moving target. We can evolve. There is nothing wrong with having goals and objectives, but art should equally be about removing the blinkers and being open to the possibilities. I really enjoy your posts! Thank you for making me think....👍🏿
Thanks Soren. I agree, art isn't science. But to me there are 2 things you need to be able to evaluate to progress: where you want to be, and the value of what you create. Both are related but different.
If you can't define where you want to be, you can't decide what is interesting to you in order to get there. You just waste your time trying lots of things that aren't what you want to be (e.g. if you want to get academic recognition, becoming the best at getting IG likes isn't going to help you).
Then separately, if you can't define what you consider good art, you can't evaluate your own creations. If you can't evaluate your creations, you can't progress. And if you can't progress, you can never reach your goal (you wouldn't know you're there in the first place).
It doesn't mean you can't progress in a zigzag, with tangents and exploration. Just that you need to be able to tell what you think is good and what you want to achieve.
For example, I'm new at street photography. It just peaked my interest in the last few months. Before that I had no interest in it at all. So I've been looking at what's been done and why (both recent and classics), and I've decided what I consider good: in terms of goal, I want to make photos I like and I'd like my peers to like them too; in terms of individual photos, I'm starting to understand what I consider good, but I'm not there yet. I need to learn more. So I can't evaluate my own images and I can't know yet how to decide my path.
I completely agree with you, on most everything you say. You are allowing for the zigzag, you are going down the rabbit hole to see what you like in Humanist/Street photography. You know what is good in your view, and you are going after it! That is a great approach. And you may not agree, but in knowing what you like in others work, and recognizing what is good, you will store that, and when you see something that triggers those images in your minds eye, you are attentive to details, composition, light, etc. and you will more often than not get something that you will be happy with. Something that is good! All I am saying is that when you take off the blinkers, you will also notice that haystack on the horizon and make that photograph, though it may not be Humanist/Street photography, and that too can be good...
Five years ago, I explicitly set out on a 10-year photography journey to get "good" at photography. I intentionally didn't define what good was, knowing it would evolve. Perhaps I'll know when I get there (ha-ha - I probably won't).
As a photographer for whom meeting the needs of an audience comes a distant second, I focus on intent. What am I trying to achieve with this image, or this series of images or project?
While the definition of good may evolve, I certainly agree with you that you need something to focus your learning objectives and prioritise where you put your time - it's always better to have a destination in mind than not. Thank you for a great post Cedric.
After many years reading books talking about “what is photography” (see Stephen Shore’s and many others’) then came what’s good Photography (read “how to read a photograph” or “masters’ pics”) for at last knowing worse and worse about the whole stuff. The last trends make things even worse (if that’s possible): forget about composition, about perfection, actually about everything and get an out of date film roll, a crappy camera and light leaks. That’s the coolest
That's why you need a guide. If you decide what YOU think your goal is, you can ignore all the fads. They're not relevant to your goal (unless your goal is to be the best at following fads).
Or perhaps who needs a guide are those beginners and not so beginners lost in what called “the process”, aiming for a ridiculous film disposable camera and so on. Who benefits from all that?, not photography for sure, just opportunists selling the invention of the wheel. A real brain wash. Just denying evolution and dismissing experience
There is definitively room for everyone in photography and all approaches are valid. For some it's film (I can't understand the appeal, but some people like the chemicals, the physicality of negatives and prints), for others is crappy or P&S cameras (that's new, in the early 2000s it was Lomography and Baby lenses), for some it will be digital.
And ignoring the hardware, genres vary a lot, from abstract to landscapes, via different flavours of street, travel, portraits, documentary, etc. We each have our interests and what appeals to us. Which changes over time.
The problem with the internet is the amount of people who have a solution to sell you. The sea of people who know what you should like or do, and oh they just happen to have a Lr preset package or a photo workshop coming up for only $800. It's hard for beginners, and even confirmed photographers, to sift through the noise.
But if you spend some time thinking about what you want to achieve, you get a direction and help ignoring the irrelevant. That was my thinking behind the post. In my case I want to make photos that please me and I'd like to become good enough for people to reference me and my photos as being good in my field, like they do today with others. So, I don't care about hardware. I have old cameras that are plenty good enough (I'm the limiting factor, not them). I have a few because I like variety and there are cameras I've always wanted to play with. I know I need to become better before I outgrow them. That means that I don't care about anything that talks to me about hardware.
I don't care about likes and clicks, and subscribers. I'm on no social media platform other than subscack and I can't even tell you how many subscribers I have. I didn't start because I wanted people to venerate me, I started because I need to write to think about things and I thought others might also benefit from my ramblings.
I'm not interested in running a photography business of any kind, so I'm not interested in anyone discussing that.
That limits a lot what I even consider looking at: I like to see how people understand their photography and explore how differently people relate to their art. I might not even like their photos (e.g. I really struggle with most of the 70s and 80s Japanese collectives), but I'm interested in their motivation and steal some of their ideas. I like to see how people build their photos (e.g. composition). Everything else I'm not interested in because it won't help me reach my goal (e.g. sell your photos, increase your following, make money, what's the best gear for activity X, etc).
Sell photos, increase your following, make money. That has nothing to do with whether your photos are good or bad. There’s not actually room for everyone. Internet works by trends, anything out of that is marginal and addressed to disappear.
😂😂😂😂
Enjoyed this read!
Great article as always, Cedric! I’m more or less in the same path as you as regards my definition of ‘good’. If I like it, is good to me. If other people also like it, I’m happy with it but if they don’t, it’s alright as well. I’m very demanding and strict towards myself in the attainment of what good is to me. If I’m not satisfied with it, it is not good. Not to me but also not to anybody else. I don’t know for sure if this is a right approach but it is how I do.
Nice one, Cedric. I embrace that "good" is simple individual progress. Competing with myself only, I judge my photos based on the question of "does this at minimum espouse all the principles that I've mastered so far?" If it doesn't, it's not good to me. If it does and also happens to add a new or beautiful, unexpected element, that's when it excites me and I head down a new path. Thanks for the prompt!
For me a good photograph has a compelling composition, interesting subject (not weird or unusual), depth of dimension through layering, and direction or flow, i.e. leading lines. Rich complimentary color palate, not over saturated. At least some of these to be a good photograph. Overall aesthetically pleasing to the eye, that holds a viewer's attention. (That will stop you scrolling.)
Your post contains quite a few enigmas I'm sure many of us know all too well. I don't know if it's possible to apply any methodology to the discovery of what's 'good', not just because it can differ greatly from one photographer to the next, but because there are so many intentions/goals involved in being a photographer, as you point out so well.
After decades of making photos, with many cameras and lenses, I've come to the conclusion that a photo is 'good' if it gets the message across the photog had in mind, even if it's a simple 'look how beautiful this is', the only condition being it needs to be about his/her own concept of beauty. I like to discuss concepts of beauty with other people, not just photographers. I still want to learn more, not so much in a technical sense, but about approaching and handling these notions. That's my reason for sharing photos. I would welcome an initiative to review or discuss methods and styles in photography.
It's sounds to me that your personal idea of good is to be able to transfer your message and to communicate your idea of beauty to the viewer. Tough goal but interesting.
How you do that, what techniques, styles, firms, medium, is up to you.
I don't disagree with your bottom line of the need to have a clear goal of what you want from your photography. My issue is that you have come to this conclusion through many years of experimenting, trying this and that. No human buys their first camera with a clear end goal in mind. I mean, they might have a goal, but two months into the process, if they have any artistic or creative sensibility at all, they will be open to new possibilities and the goal has changed, and the need for a different kind of lens or lighting etc rears its consumptive head. Just saying...I think rare is the person who knows what they want from the beginning. Only the uncertain journey will give you that knowledge over time.
Goal is not genre or style, though. I found my voice in landscape photography 20 years ago after experimenting with setup, style, process, etc. Now I've reached a point where I feel I've explored the genre enough and I want to try something new. So I'm starting street photography and I'm starting from scratch: I experiment with styles, subjects, setups, etc.
But my long term goal hasn't changed. I haven't decided one day to be the king of social networks, then a pro corporate photographer, then be a legend referenced by academics for the next 50 years. That you can decide early, before you know what your style, or even genre is.
Gear, style, process are there to experiment within your goal. The goal is just a direction or a guide. It doesn't limit what you do.
Solid thinking. Strong work.
Great article and do I tend to agree with you Cedric. The personal satisfaction route is my goal with perhaps some peer recognition, but the challenge of this is to keep my prime goal of satisfaction in my mind and not be influenced by what might garner that peer recognition if it doesn't fit my style of photography.
To me that's the right way to do it: if your know what you want out of your photography, you can build a path there and ignore the noise. Then you can be happy.
Fascinating read Soren. I believe we are only as good as our knowledge and abilities allow us to be. That's why having a goal or a target is important. I find your scientific approach super interesting, great read!