An honest answer to why your photos aren’t very good.

I’m not trying to beat people over the head here, I have to admit I have almost never taken a really good WOW worthy photo myself, the kind that would let’s say, win a challenge here on DPR, or join the sample gallery of a photographic product, or be featured on a manufacturer’s instagram account. That’s the standard of “good” I’m talking about here.

I think there are two general types of misconceptions regarding this, and obviously neither is correct:

1. My camera isn’t good enough, if only I can afford a Leica M10.
2. My skill isn’t good enough, a great photographer could’ve taken that with a phone.

In fact, I would say neither of those factors are really that important, or at least they are quite misleading. I think if we were to rank the factors that affect the quality of a photo, form the most to the least relevant, it should actually look something like this:

1. The quality of the scene itself. Are you actually in a beautiful place, at a beautiful vantage point. The ability to judge arguably counts as skill, cuz the average tourist do like to snap at stuff that would never look good.
2. If you’re shooting people it includes the attractiveness of your model. It is simply way easier to take an attractive photos of Scarlet Johansson in professional makeup and styling, than some random woman you personally know. There are also different types of attractiveness obviously, if you look at an iPhone commercial they rarely employ your standard hot white actress, but they do get models who have very strong character and attractive in a more subtle way. You’ll never see iPhone sample images of people everyone would consider to be ugly.
3. If you are shooting models, you need to give them directions, or the skill of the model to pose.
4. Lighting, arguably this also counts as skill. But it’s not like skill can make bad lighting good. Maybe you would be able to salvage a bad lighting condition in a creative way. The point is that you can’t take the same photo as someone with a professional lighting studio with just skill alone. You also need your own studio. Or if the weather isn’t good it’s just boring overcast all the way, you can’t take a photos of a beautiful sunset with raw skill under those conditions.
5. framing, composition etc... Ok, yea this is just part of “skill”, nothing to argue. But look it’s only raked 4th.
6. Performance of your camera. I’m not talking about like, D810 vs. D850 that kind of performance difference here. More like, crappy point&shoot versus any decent interchangeable lens camera. Obviously this will start to matter more in challenging conditions compared to sunny day. This also includes the use of an appropriate lens.
7. Post, image manipulation. Color and tonal adjustments.
8. Image sharpness, aberrations, “micro contrast” , “zeiss color”, “3D pop” etc.... The things you can ONLY improve by spending more money on your lens (of the same focal length and aperture size).

I’m not saying it is not possible to take good photos of ugly people or ugly places. Sure you can, you can take creative photos of those things, but you can’t take a photo of an unattractive person that is comparable to beauty magazine covers with “photography skill”. In the same way, you can’t take a breathtakingly beautiful photo of the scenery in a heavily polluted mid-sized recently developed city in China. You may be able to take some thoughtful and interesting photos there, that depends on your skill.

Let me make it a lot easier with a famous quote from Robert Capa (photographer from Spanish Civil War and on): "If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

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"Knowledge is good." Emil Faber

Talk about basic underlying assumptions. This may all be very good advice if the photographer's goal is to take "beautiful" pictures of "beautiful" things. But it is not wise to assume that that is everyone's goal. There are plenty of us out there actively trying *not* to do that.

Hi,

My Photography and Digital Media teacher always says this to me just stop, breathe out and tuck your elbows into your body.

Hope this helps.

My own first teacher used to say pretty much the same thing.

Who says my photos aren't very good? You?

Sorry but my photos aren't meant to impress anyone with the exception of my customers who pay me.

I notice you don't have any good photos in your gallery.

Got any good photos to wow us so we know you know what you're talking about?

Corkcampbell said:

Let me make it a lot easier with a famous quote from Robert Capa (photographer from Spanish Civil War and on): "If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

--

"Knowledge is good." Emil Faber

Click to expand...

This is his last photo :





he died shortly after when he stepped on a land mine.

MisJay said:

I’m not trying to beat people over the head here, I have to admit I have almost never taken a really good WOW worthy photo myself, the kind that would let’s say, win a challenge here on DPR, or join the sample gallery of a photographic product, or be featured on a manufacturer’s instagram account. That’s the standard of “good” I’m talking about here.

I think there are two general types of misconceptions regarding this, and obviously neither is correct:

1. My camera isn’t good enough, if only I can afford a Leica M10.
2. My skill isn’t good enough, a great photographer could’ve taken that with a phone.

In fact, I would say neither of those factors are really that important, or at least they are quite misleading. I think if we were to rank the factors that affect the quality of a photo, form the most to the least relevant, it should actually look something like this:

1. The quality of the scene itself. Are you actually in a beautiful place, at a beautiful vantage point. The ability to judge arguably counts as skill, cuz the average tourist do like to snap at stuff that would never look good.
2. If you’re shooting people it includes the attractiveness of your model. It is simply way easier to take an attractive photos of Scarlet Johansson in professional makeup and styling, than some random woman you personally know. There are also different types of attractiveness obviously, if you look at an iPhone commercial they rarely employ your standard hot white actress, but they do get models who have very strong character and attractive in a more subtle way. You’ll never see iPhone sample images of people everyone would consider to be ugly.
3. If you are shooting models, you need to give them directions, or the skill of the model to pose.
4. Lighting, arguably this also counts as skill. But it’s not like skill can make bad lighting good. Maybe you would be able to salvage a bad lighting condition in a creative way. The point is that you can’t take the same photo as someone with a professional lighting studio with just skill alone. You also need your own studio. Or if the weather isn’t good it’s just boring overcast all the way, you can’t take a photos of a beautiful sunset with raw skill under those conditions.
5. framing, composition etc... Ok, yea this is just part of “skill”, nothing to argue. But look it’s only raked 4th.
6. Performance of your camera. I’m not talking about like, D810 vs. D850 that kind of performance difference here. More like, crappy point&shoot versus any decent interchangeable lens camera. Obviously this will start to matter more in challenging conditions compared to sunny day. This also includes the use of an appropriate lens.
7. Post, image manipulation. Color and tonal adjustments.
8. Image sharpness, aberrations, “micro contrast” , “zeiss color”, “3D pop” etc.... The things you can ONLY improve by spending more money on your lens (of the same focal length and aperture size).

I’m not saying it is not possible to take good photos of ugly people or ugly places. Sure you can, you can take creative photos of those things, but you can’t take a photo of an unattractive person that is comparable to beauty magazine covers with “photography skill”. In the same way, you can’t take a breathtakingly beautiful photo of the scenery in a heavily polluted mid-sized recently developed city in China. You may be able to take some thoughtful and interesting photos there, that depends on your skill.

Click to expand...

I don't know about all that stuff, I am a hobbyist and I just want to have a bit of fun with my cameras, my computers and my time. Basically wowing anyone else is at the bottom of my list, actually its not on my list at all.

Clearly if I was making a living from this and my income depended on the images wowability to others, I would feel differently.

My work, so you can judge for yourself. All my images are shot on a D3300, and 80% of them are on a kit lens or the 50mm 1.8.

GALLERY: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/60179981




2015, Kit Lens, Natural Light

You're absolutely right that a photographers job is as much about what is going on in front of the lens than what is going on behind it. Technical photographers plateau hard after a certain point - like Mike Browne says, "you don't want a sharp photo of a hazy concept." I am personally a technically weak photographer, I am blown away by the encyclopedic knowledge of some of the people on this forum when it comes to cameras, lenses, lighting, and history. My post processing skills are also average, 90% of it is Lightroom and I only learned proper Photoshop facial retouching in the last few months.

If I don't get to plan and control the elements in a shoot (wardrobe, props, and location) then I feel hamstrung as a photographer. Of course I can take sharp images on-the-fly for a friend or client and maybe get some creative shots and angles in, but to me, that's the recording of an event, not an expression of my art. I don't plan on doing more weddings anytime soon.

I handpicked the wardrobe for all the models in that photo gallery, sometimes I even go with them on their pre-shoot shopping trip and have them try on several outfits in the dressing rooms. (The first girl's gray dress, white scarf, and glasses all match the steely, gray, high-polish environment of the college campus for example. We bought all those clothes specifically for the shoot). I choose a location to suit the outfit (or vise versa) and buy or bring props. I also write down in Evernote some shots I would like to get, imagining them in as much detail as possible (focal length, pose, etc). I write down key words to keep in mind during the shoot, such as "Cold" "Professional" "Condescending" so I can have them in my head while I'm snapping away. I find some music in my iTunes that suits the theme and I listen to it before the shoot and after during editing. I download some inspiration photos and also put them on Evernote so this is all accessible on my phone during the shoot.

Is this too much planning and forethought? Every photog has their own style so YMMV, but speaking for myself, if I didn't do this my pictures would be far worse and my shoots would be a lot more dependent on my equipment being snazzy. I'd love a full-frame but I'm quite happy with my D3300 and my cheap lenses.

Misjay wrote a lot of interesting "facts (?!)"..!

I'll say this about that -

Many if not most "photographers" out there in the world, don't care about beautiful people, beautiful backgrounds, a beautiful setting in general.

I'll stick my neck out there and say, most "photographers" (those with a camera in hand)...out there just enjoy capturing daily life, a moment in a day, an odd insect, their family cat or dog digging in the mud...etc. Some may call these shots "snap-shots" in a most degrading way (yea, seen it done here in this forum !)...when in fact, all photos "can" be classified as...dare I say, snap-shots, if you think about the actual term..!

And ya know what...many of these..."snap-shots" of a cat sleeping in an odd position, the dog licking a baby's face...etc., etc. with a blurred background, a messy room, the garage as a backdrop, and ya know what...to that person, that shot IS in fact "beautiful", might even end up being enlarged and on the wall of the living room.

Just another way of thinking about what is a good or "beautiful" photograph.

Mike

Mike - said:

Misjay wrote a lot of interesting "facts (?!)"..!

I'll say this about that -

Many if not most "photographers" out there in the world, don't care about beautiful people, beautiful backgrounds, a beautiful setting in general.

I'll stick my neck out there and say, most "photographers" (those with a camera in hand)...out there just enjoy capturing daily life, a moment in a day, an odd insect, their family cat or dog digging in the mud...etc. Some may call these shots "snap-shots" in a most degrading way (yea, seen it done here in this forum !)...when in fact, all photos "can" be classified as...dare I say, snap-shots, if you think about the actual term..!

And ya know what...many of these..."snap-shots" of a cat sleeping in an odd position, the dog licking a baby's face...etc., etc. with a blurred background, a messy room, the garage as a backdrop, and ya know what...to that person, that shot IS in fact "beautiful", might even end up being enlarged and on the wall of the living room.

Just another way of thinking about what is a good or "beautiful" photograph.

Mike

Click to expand...

Since I saw the white light a few years ago the running joke with my daughter whenever somebody takes a "snap shot" of me is "that will be a good one for the memorial board".

Someday those "snap shots" of me will be beautiful to my daughter and hopefully grand kids.

Seems you're confusing photography with pornography. Many of my best shots are landscapes.

I really dont like a lot of the assumptions in the Op's post.

I shoot quite a lot of models (who can pose well) with good make up (my gf is an mua) and with studio lighting (I have a studio). But imho opinion it simply isnt a challenge. All you are really doing as a photographer is pressing the shutter and a little bit of a post.

Here is an example...





This seems to be a nice photograph - nice model, nice pose, nice make up - but it certainly isnt a 'good photograph' when it is essentially a snapshot of a nice scene. I think the very concept of 'its way easier' is generally an anathema to a good photograph. If this is the route to good photography simply go to a workshop, where they will line up good models, with great make up and lighting and you can click the shutter to your hearts content.

I live in Bangkok and I see fantastic images taken on the streets by other photographers virtually every week.

Personally I think good photography is much more about finding aesthetic beauty (in its many forms) in places and with people where the underlying beauty isnt obvious rather than clicking your camera when a beautiful landscape or model is placed in front of you.

No model, no make up, no studio and no lighting but I still see a lot of beauty in this portrait (taken last week in Rhakine).

I think blaiming a lack of model/mua/studio or subject matter for bad photography is even worse than blaiming your equipment.







--

[No message]

MisJay said:

I’m not trying to beat people over the head here, I have to admit I have almost never taken a really good WOW worthy photo myself, the kind that would let’s say, win a challenge here on DPR, or join the sample gallery of a photographic product, or be featured on a manufacturer’s instagram account. That’s the standard of “good” I’m talking about here.

I think there are two general types of misconceptions regarding this, and obviously neither is correct:

1. My camera isn’t good enough, if only I can afford a Leica M10.
2. My skill isn’t good enough, a great photographer could’ve taken that with a phone.

In fact, I would say neither of those factors are really that important, or at least they are quite misleading. I think if we were to rank the factors that affect the quality of a photo, form the most to the least relevant, it should actually look something like this:

1. The quality of the scene itself. Are you actually in a beautiful place, at a beautiful vantage point. The ability to judge arguably counts as skill, cuz the average tourist do like to snap at stuff that would never look good.
2. If you’re shooting people it includes the attractiveness of your model. It is simply way easier to take an attractive photos of Scarlet Johansson in professional makeup and styling, than some random woman you personally know. There are also different types of attractiveness obviously, if you look at an iPhone commercial they rarely employ your standard hot white actress, but they do get models who have very strong character and attractive in a more subtle way. You’ll never see iPhone sample images of people everyone would consider to be ugly.
3. If you are shooting models, you need to give them directions, or the skill of the model to pose.
4. Lighting, arguably this also counts as skill. But it’s not like skill can make bad lighting good. Maybe you would be able to salvage a bad lighting condition in a creative way. The point is that you can’t take the same photo as someone with a professional lighting studio with just skill alone. You also need your own studio. Or if the weather isn’t good it’s just boring overcast all the way, you can’t take a photos of a beautiful sunset with raw skill under those conditions.
5. framing, composition etc... Ok, yea this is just part of “skill”, nothing to argue. But look it’s only raked 4th.
6. Performance of your camera. I’m not talking about like, D810 vs. D850 that kind of performance difference here. More like, crappy point&shoot versus any decent interchangeable lens camera. Obviously this will start to matter more in challenging conditions compared to sunny day. This also includes the use of an appropriate lens.
7. Post, image manipulation. Color and tonal adjustments.
8. Image sharpness, aberrations, “micro contrast” , “zeiss color”, “3D pop” etc.... The things you can ONLY improve by spending more money on your lens (of the same focal length and aperture size).

I’m not saying it is not possible to take good photos of ugly people or ugly places. Sure you can, you can take creative photos of those things, but you can’t take a photo of an unattractive person that is comparable to beauty magazine covers with “photography skill”. In the same way, you can’t take a breathtakingly beautiful photo of the scenery in a heavily polluted mid-sized recently developed city in China. You may be able to take some thoughtful and interesting photos there, that depends on your skill.

Click to expand...

get onto youtube and learn from tutorials,

just like the rest of us mere mortals do

A guy I worked with went on to win the Capa Award.

In Iraq a US soldier was shot dead by a sniper right next to him.

So he was close enough.

I told him that it was time to get out of there.

[No message]

MisJay said:

I’m not trying to beat people over the head here, I have to admit I have almost never taken a really good WOW worthy photo myself, the kind that would let’s say, win a challenge here on DPR, or join the sample gallery of a photographic product, or be featured on a manufacturer’s instagram account. That’s the standard of “good” I’m talking about here.

I think there are two general types of misconceptions regarding this, and obviously neither is correct:

1. My camera isn’t good enough, if only I can afford a Leica M10.
2. My skill isn’t good enough, a great photographer could’ve taken that with a phone.

In fact, I would say neither of those factors are really that important, or at least they are quite misleading. I think if we were to rank the factors that affect the quality of a photo, form the most to the least relevant, it should actually look something like this:

1. The quality of the scene itself. Are you actually in a beautiful place, at a beautiful vantage point. The ability to judge arguably counts as skill, cuz the average tourist do like to snap at stuff that would never look good.
2. If you’re shooting people it includes the attractiveness of your model. It is simply way easier to take an attractive photos of Scarlet Johansson in professional makeup and styling, than some random woman you personally know. There are also different types of attractiveness obviously, if you look at an iPhone commercial they rarely employ your standard hot white actress, but they do get models who have very strong character and attractive in a more subtle way. You’ll never see iPhone sample images of people everyone would consider to be ugly.
3. If you are shooting models, you need to give them directions, or the skill of the model to pose.
4. Lighting, arguably this also counts as skill. But it’s not like skill can make bad lighting good. Maybe you would be able to salvage a bad lighting condition in a creative way. The point is that you can’t take the same photo as someone with a professional lighting studio with just skill alone. You also need your own studio. Or if the weather isn’t good it’s just boring overcast all the way, you can’t take a photos of a beautiful sunset with raw skill under those conditions.
5. framing, composition etc... Ok, yea this is just part of “skill”, nothing to argue. But look it’s only raked 4th.
6. Performance of your camera. I’m not talking about like, D810 vs. D850 that kind of performance difference here. More like, crappy point&shoot versus any decent interchangeable lens camera. Obviously this will start to matter more in challenging conditions compared to sunny day. This also includes the use of an appropriate lens.
7. Post, image manipulation. Color and tonal adjustments.
8. Image sharpness, aberrations, “micro contrast” , “zeiss color”, “3D pop” etc.... The things you can ONLY improve by spending more money on your lens (of the same focal length and aperture size).

I’m not saying it is not possible to take good photos of ugly people or ugly places. Sure you can, you can take creative photos of those things, but you can’t take a photo of an unattractive person that is comparable to beauty magazine covers with “photography skill”. In the same way, you can’t take a breathtakingly beautiful photo of the scenery in a heavily polluted mid-sized recently developed city in China. You may be able to take some thoughtful and interesting photos there, that depends on your skill.

Click to expand...

It is a wayyy too candid conclusion that one cannot take a good scenery photo in a heavily polluted city in China - many did have great works from those cities in China, and probably they preferred the pollution as part of the element of their image.

The simple question is that statistically that there are only few percentage of really good photographers, similar to not all painters are great, only handle of them are really good, as not all architects are good, only very few of them are the master class.

The easiest answer is that simply not everyone can take good images, there is no other reason, those who are not good are just not good enough, regardless of the camera they can have or given, or often does not matter how long or how many classes one get into. Not everyone train to run 100m can go to compete in the Olympic, but those compete in the Olympics are not only talent but also lots of training.

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Regards, K
https://www.facebook.com/kaisern.chen
https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/1276208080

I don't believe is "standards" of anything.... everyone has different tastes, and their all valid !

...of course, except for the PROS, who must obey their customer's taste !

;-)

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My photos galleries
My 360x180 Spherical panoramas #1
My 360x180 Spherical panoramas #2