What makes a photo “deep”?

[Heroique]

Just curious – if you think an LF image has intellectual or emotional “depth,” what made you think so? (I’ll trust that the general meaning of this term is useful enough for conversation here, since we’re not overly-precise, jargon-bedeviled art critics.)

Either well-known “masterpieces,” or prints by you or others.

Does your awareness of depth happen immediately, the moment you see an image for the first time – or does it happen only after an interior (critical) struggle, maybe hours, days or years later? Can you simply describe, as an educated layperson, what this depth is, and when it’s necessary?

Is it mainly a response to literal, describable things – light, line, color, tone, mass, spacing, texture, etc. – or something more mysterious, instinctual, and resistant to language?

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On a related note, just how objective is anyone’s sense of photographic depth?

[Kirk Gittings]

Good question. To me we are talking about images that connect with people on multiple levels, print quality, composition, emotional response, intellectually etc. A print that is "deep" draws you back and reveals more with each visit.

[BrianShaw]

I don't have the vocabulary to properly describe it but for me "deep" images are those which I look at for a prolonged period of time (immediate reaction), remember, and go back to look at repeatedly (protracted reactions).... for whatever reason.

[Heroique]

I was admiring LF photos of Anasazi ruins by David Muench (4x5 Linhof Teknika + Ektachrome film) and what makes them deep, I think, is how pleasing it is for the eye to travel – and to keep traveling – through the composition, returning to the same area multiple times.

More difficult to explain than to experience:

For example, each particular subject in a photo (a crumbling wall, say, or a juniper tree) eventually leads the eye to all other subjects in the same photo w/o dead ends. You see each subject on its own – then, after looking away from it – you’re eventually led back to it once more, this time w/ a richer understanding of its surroundings. An endless journey of increasing relationships...

I suspect he captures this integration (or “conversation”) more by feeling than by conscious design, but it’s also an old “trick of the trade” in Western painting.

[Drew Wiley]

Apparently you're referring to visual depth, not something more mystical. Muench was a
conscious addict of "near/far" by using very wide angle lenses and an arrangement of some
foreground object in relation to a distant one. Other things like converging lines can be used, blah, blah. Advancing warm vs receding cool hues. In black and white, an impression
of intervening atmosphere (one reason to love the old blue sensitive films). My favorite game at one time was to confuse people over depth, disorient them.

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

A picture does not often seem "deep" to me straight away. For example, I came to like many Ansel Adams's images years since I saw them first. I must admit, though, that seeing the actual prints helped a lot. Sometimes, an image draws me instantly, appears deep, but later it seems it was just an illusion of depth—I can just think of a few frozen-motion photos of coloured water droplets looking like glass, which had wowed me at first, but a few days later seemed superficial.

I think an image is "deep" if it stays, indelibly, in my mind over a long period of time. I have only seen The Afghan Girl maybe once or twice, and I did not like it at the time, but it is there, all the time, making me think of it, and I came to like it—though not necessarily the oversized prints of it that I saw exhibited, which were poorly executed, taking away from the beauty of that image.

I agree with Heroique that an interesting composition, and a structure that leads the eye, and makes you want to discover the detail, bit by bit, helps to deepen it, similar to a painting, or other graphic arts. But that is not a sufficient quality alone.

[Heroique]

...visual depth, not something more mystical.

I too like the visual (3-D) depth of his Anasazi images ... but I was mainly referring to how his images lead the eye from land to architecture – and from architecture to land – generating the perception of an integrated whole, like a single organism.

An ongoing mystical depth, even though the civilization is long gone.

Like other “deep” photos, these by Muench certainly encourage repeated viewings w/o exhausting themselves – or as Rafal says, they have a way of staying in your mind. They stick with you & grow with you.

[Jody_S]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I think obviously not simple depth-of-field. The photographs that 'grab' me, that create an almost-instant emotional response, tend to be the ones that either challenge or re-affirm my worldview. In either instance, I tend to forget that I'm looking at a 'photograph'.

[photobymike]

Maybe a better term would be "thought provoking"..... Gestalt studied the mind shapes relationship ... but there is also a "cognitive depth" relationship to the subject matter. Ya see i took art classes in college.....

i just take pictures that make me feel good..... :-)

[ScottPhotoCo]

There are many definitions of "deep" to me. First is on the emotional side. I love an image that grabs me and makes me wish I'd made that photo. It makes me think and creates a lasting impression in my mind. As I LOVE portraits, this image by Paolo Roversi is a great example and one of my favourites:



Beyond this, there is the technical side of "deep". To me these have a range of tonality that make them seem life-like and dimensional. Generally, in my experience, these are most often found in prints using traditional methods by wizards such as Ansel Adams or Clyde Butcher. Amazing stuff. Now obviously their work is much more than darkroom wizardry, but you get what I mean.

Someday I hope to have the proficiency to combine both.