What makes a photograph "good"?

[Tin Can]

Perhaps our amygdala learn https://www.livescience.com/amygdala.html

We now have 2 related threads, one is The Bully thread and this one examining 'Like!'

Pleasure and Pain

I knew very young I never wanted to pass my genes and I have not

I think pain of the bully is a passed trait, I blame Genghis Khan, as he has spawned 16 million people alive today

There are others

Study Spartan methods of training boy warriors

Last we know now our hearts have neurons making a broken heart real

Revealing the Network of Neurons in the Heart

[Dugan]

I was actually hoping for (but not expecting) something concrete from this thread, and all I have so far is "boobies."

The defense rests.

[Tin Can]

Clearly

With apologies in advance to any who find this annoying, I'll keep hammering on Brian's assertion, which ended with the qualifier "for me." The qualifier applied to the statement "If I like it, then it is good," which is a conditional statement, "if p, then q." So what, then, of the related statements, still with the qualifier "to me?"

the converse "if q, then p," or "if it is good, then I like it"

the contrapositive "if not q, then not p," or "if it is not good, then I do not like it"

the inverse "if not p, then not q," or "if I do not like it, then it is not good"

Merg, Brian and I have all volunteered that the converse does not hold for us.

[Bernice Loui]

Two basic primal needs/drives:

~Survival.

~Reproduction (related to the comments about "boobies" in this thread).

As for Feelings_Emotions, note how any given event results in varied feelings and emotional reaction or reflexes from individuals.
One of the great challenges in life's journey is understanding emotions/feelings, who one might really be.


Bernice

Diogenes would ask, "Why isn't that enough?"

A little longer answer. Why we are the way we are has either supernatural or natural answers. I'll leave the supernatural to others. If the answers are natural, then evolution tells us why we are the way we are. Either a trait was useful in a particular environment for our ancestors, and so it was selected for, or it's due to offspring variation. Our aesthetic sense is no different. Things aren't beautiful or sweet in themselves. It's our minds that make them so. See Daniel Dennett's talk here if interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVkfjg Our sense of beauty likely came from mating choices, just as a peacocks' tail is due to peahens' choice of mates. It also might be due to food that was healthy, and environments that were safe.....and the mechanisms that developed in these situations where latter applied to other things.

Feelings, by the way, are nothing more than predictions: https://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_feldm...n_creates_them

[Peter De Smidt]

One way to look at much of art is that it's the attempt to create super normal stimuli. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ObUIf9pcs

This doesn't just have to involve sex, it can also involve fear, hope......

Psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt tell us that our reasonable faculties are used more to justify and defend what we want to do instead of being used to find the truth. Many of our theories about what we do are nothing more than confabulation, an unconscious making up of reasons as a defense instead of explaining the causes of our actions. They come after our desire and not before.

In a way we're like giant jewel beetles trying to make more stimulating beer bottles. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-giant-...beetle-1968152

[Tin Can]

“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”

― Socrates

I do a lot when in bed, I think, I sleep, I dream, I wake in a lurch, I snore

in that dream, I am in an endless expanse of white all around

I try to get out, but it is endless, not scary, then I fade to nothing

Today I remembered a dream I often had when young, not much anymore

I am going to direct my dreams toward it

Seems, I am not the only one

https://allpoetry.com/poem/9351641-E...Lone-physicist

"Endless expanse of white..
The Regio-Bahn moves in a whizz
spraying 'n my face the fizz
of the tiny twirls of powder snow.
The tingle of a shred on my cornea-
but the eyes - never could satiate
gazing the endless expanse of white.

I long for soothing voice of the hiss
as my feet trample them into terrains
of ice, bearing my footprints on their brow-
twitched feeling the pain of my frozen limbs.
But the mind, still, could lose itself
wandering the endless expanse of white'

[Jody_S]

Photography began a little like piano playing as a hobby: as an upper-class pastime. As a signifier of class, like being a 'naturalist'. Only the well-off could afford the time, equipment etc. to start making photos of whatever. Then people, again of a certain class, were expected to own photos. Portraits, cartes-de-visite, lockets, in descending order until such a time as common folk could afford to get a penny portrait from a travelling photographer at a fair. But the pursuit of photography as an artistic expression remained confined to the upper classes. What was defined as a 'good' photograph was necessarily influenced by the tastes and peculiarities of those upper class folk. And those tastes are somewhat easily categorized and studied.

George Eastman extended photography as a pastime to the middle class, and smartphones have now spread to almost every corner of the planet. Witness the famous photo of 2 Zulus in costume, paid by a tourist to do a traditional dance, captured taking a selfie before they began. Discussions of what is a 'good' photograph have become complicated as the practice of photography was extended to the middle and lower classes. Virtually all practitioners of large format photography are upper or upper-middle class, as our hobby still requires considerable resources and leisure time. And our tastes pretty uniformly track with the amateur photographers of similar class working in the 19th century, judging from the photos posted here. And what we like is almost invariably rejected by the working classes who have only access to smartphones and Facebook. They would hate scrolling through pages and pages of photos of doors and windows and fuzzy old cars, just as I can't bear to scroll through my SIL's 300+ galleries of duckface selfies on Facebook. We each think the other is mildly mentally ill for our different photographic pursuits.


That doesn't tell anyone what makes a good photograph. What makes a good photograph to me, to the local photo club, to the editors of NG or Life or NYT, to an upscale art gallery manager, to a birdwatcher, to my mother-in-law, each could be pinpointed to some degree.

[r.e.]

That was an interesting read.

It's quite an indictment of the work of amateur large format photographers. Maybe all those people using smartphones to make photographs and videos are just a different generation, one living in the 21st century

Photography began a little like piano playing as a hobby: as an upper-class pastime. As a signifier of class, like being a 'naturalist'. Only the well-off could afford the time, equipment etc. to start making photos of whatever. Then people, again of a certain class, were expected to own photos. Portraits, cartes-de-visite, lockets, in descending order until such a time as common folk could afford to get a penny portrait from a travelling photographer at a fair. But the pursuit of photography as an artistic expression remained confined to the upper classes. What was defined as a 'good' photograph was necessarily influenced by the tastes and peculiarities of those upper class folk. And those tastes are somewhat easily categorized and studied.

George Eastman extended photography as a pastime to the middle class, and smartphones have now spread to almost every corner of the planet. Witness the famous photo of 2 Zulus in costume, paid by a tourist to do a traditional dance, captured taking a selfie before they began. Discussions of what is a 'good' photograph have become complicated as the practice of photography was extended to the middle and lower classes. Virtually all practitioners of large format photography are upper or upper-middle class, as our hobby still requires considerable resources and leisure time. And our tastes pretty uniformly track with the amateur photographers of similar class working in the 19th century, judging from the photos posted here. And what we like is almost invariably rejected by the working classes who have only access to smartphones and Facebook. They would hate scrolling through pages and pages of photos of doors and windows and fuzzy old cars, just as I can't bear to scroll through my SIL's 300+ galleries of duckface selfies on Facebook. We each think the other is mildly mentally ill for our different photographic pursuits.


That doesn't tell anyone what makes a good photograph. What makes a good photograph to me, to the local photo club, to the editors of NG or Life or NYT, to an upscale art gallery manager, to a birdwatcher, to my mother-in-law, each could be pinpointed to some degree.

[Dugan]

I like Jody's post.
It brings in to play "relevance"...
What I photograph is what interests and is relevant to me, but would bore many to tears.
The photographic term "equivalent" is a lost concept to the general population.
Showing an abstract print to a non-photographer will bring about the question "What is it?"...being subject-oriented.
And the response "Never mind what it is, how does it make you feel?"... just creates confusion & frustration.
So, "good" can mean "Is it successful in what the photographer is trying to convey?", "Would this make a nice postcard?", " Does this line up with my preconceived notions of what a 'good' photo is?", and many others.
At that level, "good" almost becomes meaningless...like "nice"....as in "Have you met so & so?" "Yeah, he's nice".

[Tin Can]

Yes, Jody nails it!

I look at equivalence posts and wonder WTF, few qualify

so what, post away, I do, it's free

This is a hobby for most, we get to experiment without deadlines and patrons

I got into LF to stave off old age boredom, IN MY HOME, in wheelchair if necessary

A 'good' image to me, is one I don't tear up

Great ones are on MY wall......few

Working class have advanced imaging historically for their moment of joy

Winter is coming