How do you make really great photographs?

[Airy]

Around here I am known for certain things.  For example, I don't think the answer is having the ultimate in gear. It has to be good, but not great.

Yes, any lens rated 4-5 in Naturfotograef will do. That includes good as well as great. BTW those "subjective" ratings have proven more useful (to me) than any dxo-style report where you have to endlessly wheigh the pros and cons.

That being said, you really should try the 300 PF. It is good if not great, rather inconspicuous (if you don't mount the shade) and is a sweeeet long distance portrait lens.

I like taking street shots with attractive people in them.

Please go on. We're all grateful for that.

Travel helps.  Being in an unfamiliar place seems to stimulate one's creative juices.  I travel to the point of distraction.

Right. The other way is to stay home and concentrate until you see things another way, but that is just as time-consuming, albeit less expensive. And i is just as rewarding, but certainly less fun.

Yet another way is to meet a third party kicking you out of your routine.

There are many paths to photographic fulfillment.

That's why our paths inevitably cross here.

[Almass]

Please define what is a "Great Photograph"

[black_bird_blue]

I'm with Almass here. The process looks like this to me:

1) Know what "really great photographs" are
2) Compare one's pictures to them
3) Understand the difference/gap
4) Close the gap

If one doesn't know what great photographs are, the process will never work except on some kind of lottery basis.

Questions I sometimes use for step 1:

1) Does it need no explanation?
    1a) If it needs an explanation, does it somehow educate/edify the viewer?
2) Does it produce an immediate emotional response of some kind?
    2a) Does it delight (or otherwise move) the people in it?
3) Is it technically adequate?
4) Will it cause other photographers to be curious about how it was done?
5) Was it luck or willpower that got the image?

These aren't simultaneous criteria, but I would like to think that at least, say, two are necessary to lift an image out of the mundane.

[Frank Fremerey]

I agree.  The Tilburg-dutch artist and philosopher Kees Mandos said:  'Als ge 't hier nie ziet, ziede 't daor ook nie' which means roughly translated 'if you don't see it here (your own town) you won't see it there.'

Noone can shoot what he cannot see. That is why you can send 10 photographers into the same event or house or forest and very rarely come up with similar results.

Only if you pack photographers too close together certain characters try to copycat the others.

***

That is why I like to be alone while shooting: undisturbed vision.

***

Or I intentionally "produce" a picture with others. Then a common visualisation is the goal. I think of the project I did with our group in the South Germany Workshop with Bjørn a while ago. Hi Simone, Hi Chris, Hi Gunter...

***

In regular conditions I let myself be impressed by what I see, what I discover and try to make my vision preceptible to others. That is the goal.

Somethimes it works out nicely, sometimes not. That is the learning curve: flat sometimes, steep sometimes.

I do not see another way in PRACTICE.

***

Then there is a great teaching which is:

You want to change something small? Then go change the way you DO things
You aspire a big change? Then change the way you SEE things

***

Visit Museums, Buy catalogs, visit trade fairs and exhibitions, go consciously to places without bringing a camera and change your relationship to the the place. Then bring a camera the second time you go there.

***

To sum up my rant on the opening question: SEEING is non technical. SEENING is about personality, character and relationship to oneself and all other things and beings.

***

PS: For me a great photo is a photo that:

a) matches my original vision (i.e. I reached my goal)

b) happens to cause the desired effect in the people viewing the picture (salvinating people in the case of my food shots)

[Ron Scubadiver]

Please define what is a "Great Photograph"

That is the question.  As Justice Stewart said about pornography "I know it when I see it."

Great photography engages the viewer in a special way.  It may be emotional or intellectual, positive or negative, complete or incomplete.  The possibilities are endless.  That is why we are photographers.

As for travel vs stay at home I try to get the most out of each one.  There is some blurring as my many trips to Hawaii tend to give it a sense of familiarity.  So, I try to do something different each time.  At home I took a lot of photos in art galleries, but eventually found the same subjects repeating too often.  One must move on.  Since acquiring my 200-500 I am getting to know the local bird population.  There are all sorts of subject matter groups I have sampled and need to return to in depth.

The 200-500 will get a workout where I am going.  It is not a tame place.

[Les Olson]

John Szarkowski said "It isn't what a picture is of, it is what it is about".  Or as someone else to whom I apologise for forgetting their name said, "There is a difference between a photograph of something interesting, and an interesting photograph". 

Going somewhere else gives you a lot more things to take pictures of, but it makes it less likely the photographs will be about anything - on the contrary: you are far more likely to have something interesting to say about places you know well. 

The answer to the question of how you make really good photographs is you imagine them, then you either set them up or find them.  Then you don't even have to be able to see: John Dugdale is blind (http://vagazine.com/blog/2013/09/14/john-dugdale-master-photographer/)

[Frank Fremerey]

Les: I never go out to find a vision I created at home.

 I previsualize while immersing into the scene.

Sometimes I am on a longer project an search for scenes that
might fit into that project. See food. See organs. See searching
for certain architectural features. This is but more a collector
work.

The real motivation is always to show what I see to others
or to recreate a feeling using the medium.

[Fons Baerken]

why do people miss the point when they start to intellectualize

[black_bird_blue]

why do people miss the point when they start to intellectualize

How do you know they do so?

[Ron Scubadiver]

why do people miss the point when they start to intellectualize

I believe I know exactly what Fons is saying. 

[Frank Fremerey]

Deleted

[black_bird_blue]

I believe I know exactly what Fons is saying.

I believe I do, too. We could compare beliefs, perhaps. After you?

[Frank Fremerey]

I believe I do, too. We could compare beliefs, perhaps. After you?

I believe Fons does not like the discussion and therefore left
a destructive comment to discourage the participants which
I consider to be very impolite.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Let people express directly their sentiments. We should not be interpreters.

[Almass]

I believe I know exactly what Fons is saying.

I have no idea what Fons is on about.

What I know is that I was only invited yesterday for a visit at Somerset House for this Tuesday to view an exhibition of Saul Leiter famous and pioneering New York Street Photography......afterwards I am having Jamón ibérico for lunch on the Strand.....

"Saul Leiter, who has died aged 89, was one of the quiet men of American photography. A pioneer of colour, he remained relatively unsung until he was rediscovered by curators and critics in his early 80s. Even then, Leiter was reluctant to accept the belated praise heaped upon him. "What makes anyone think that I'm any good?" he asked Tomas Leach, who directed........"

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/29/saul-leiter

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/postscript-saul-leiter-1923-2013

Ron, you being a SP par excellence, probably you know about Saul Leiter and if you don't, he is right up your street.

P.S. I don't think we are allowed to take pics of Saul Leiter images at his exhibition....but will try.

And that is a Great picture of a deferred lunch pleasure