What is a good photo?

By: Keivan Taban

A photo is a frozen moment. A look, a feeling, a mood frozen for its worth, as seen by the photographer. Now a legitimate question is raised: what is worthwhile to freeze? What is the worth? How “worth” should be defined and judged? All these questions are monstrously hard to answer, or to be crueler, are better not answered! No one is brave enough to claim to know the answer, or to be crueler, is ignorant enough to even try to make such a claim. Every answer would be unequivocally subjective, the truth and accuracy of which is impossible to prove.

So, after all, what is a good photo? I’m going to answer this question subjectively. My answer would not be true or false. It is only a viewpoint. I think a good photo is one that makes you pause and run your eyes around it again, and maybe again, or one that locks your eyes without you being aware of it. Then, causes a motion in your emotions, no matter what or how clear those emotions are. The fact that you paused, means the photo had something to offer—In terms of visual aesthetics, emotional weight, or a combination of these two. Photos have to give us an indication that their creators cared about the subject they present. The choice of lighting, angle, clutter, and framing should tell us how the artist felt about the subject. Everything should in harmony point to the main subject. Therefore, if you looked at a photo and felt lost, that photo failed its mission. However, it should be noted that being lost is different from wandering in a photo. When you wander in a photo, you try to figure it out; to dig deeper and make sense of what caught your attention. But, if you are lost, it means there is nothing there to figure out. That means the photo is void, and a void photo is as good as a non-existing one.