What makes a great photographer?
What makes a great photographer? This is a super complicated question due to the nature of the subject. First of all, it’s totally subjective, so why am I even questioning this. I think knowing what makes someone or something great in your eyes can help you become great too. By studying the photographers, you look up too and admire you can rise to be closer to there level or even surpass them. All the people I will mention will prioritize an aspect of photography and are amazing in their own right. I want to point out why each part of the process is important and how they work together. A photographer needs to work on each part of photography so their photography can gradually get better.
What are some conditions most people believe a photographer to be great? Some may love pure ascetics of an image. When I think of this, I think of @northboarders images, there beautiful but I find very little of anything else in his photos. This in some eyes is fine but by putting all this emphasis on the aesthetics leaves little room for stories or character in the images. This can end up having photos of a cool car, which then is forgotten because of the next photo of a cool car. Adding other aspects of photography with ascetics can set your images apart. Ascetics in your photography can help catch more eyes and show a more enjoyable photo.
Some people may find technical perfection one of the main reasons to see a great photographer but sometimes this can have the same effects of being too focused on how its shot and not what you are shooting. Just because the eye of the subject is perfectly sharp does not mean the image has meaning. @Jaredpolin at Froknowsphotos loves the gear and the specs of all these new cameras it can make people feel as though new gear will help them become professional or better. There are situations where having the fastest camera will help but, in most cases, just being there to take the photo will be enough. But knowing how to use the camera is an important tool to use. You need to use this to help you get your message across with clarity. It must be used in conjunction with telling a great story and making your image ascetic. A blurry image can tell a story if it’s done on prepose but if it distorts the information and doesn’t add anything to the story or the ascetics, it becomes useless.
What I try to prioritize is the story or feeling even if the photo isn’t technically or ascetically perfect. Story brings people into the image and help change, reinforce or expand on people’s knowledge or beliefs. This isn’t always as grand as I made it sound and generally isn’t but having story does impact the viewer in a different way. People don’t remember photos with no story because you don’t have important added to the image. People like Steve McCurry who’s is a very well know photojournalist has images that get imbedded in your brain because of the powerful stories he tells. He tells a story with each photo, and they all have a feeling which effects the viewer. Even with the powerful stories if he didn’t have the ascetics or the technical skill his photography would also fall short. The story needs to be enhanced and shown by the other aspects of photography because a story that’s hard to understand due to poor ascetics or technical skill is useless. Even an image trying to tell a story can be ruined by a bad composition.
I am biased in that I love the story element of photography. I should also point out that they all do different types of photography and story isn’t as important in northborders or Froknowsphotos. They aren’t trying to show you a war-torn nation in one photo. But every photo that is successful needs all aspects. Even if one overpowers the rest, they support each other in the creation of a powerful photo. I hope this blog helped you see why you need to learn each part of photography and the importants of each aspect.
