[r_fredrick_smith]

In a recent post, rsstory said:

A few years ago I was given a little piece of advice about images and how to determine if it is a good image or not. Essentially it is, "You weigh the positives against the negatives and if the positives overcome the negatives then you have a shot that works."

The post is at

Christina From Todays Shoot

so you can read the above in the context of that thread.

I started thinking about this statement and an interesting example popped into my mind. So I thought it might make for a good on going discussion. Is this a valid way to determine whether a photo is "good" or "bad"?

Suppose I have a photo with a beautiful background scene and a perfectly groomed and made up model who is just right for the scene but the pose is totally terrible. In this exaggerated example there are two positives (scene, model) and one negative (bad pose). Is the photo thus a "good" photo by the rule of balancing positives and negatives?

Can we really judge a photo by adding up positives and negatives? In the original thread (to have some context) we had everything positive but one or two small (minor) negative items. I would say we had 4 or 5 positive elements and two negative elements. So the photo is good --- right?

But should the weighting really be done in this manner? Instead, it seems we might want to measure the weight of each positive and negative and thus a very minor negative might not be enough to make a photo "bad". So suppose that I assign a value of one to 10 to each positive or negative. Higher numbers mean that the items is very important to the overall photo and lower number mean less important. Then we add up the total weight of the positives and compare them to the total weight of the negatives. Or is this taking the thing too far. Can we really evaluate a photo based on positives or negatives --- or must it be a more subjective "feeling"?

Side thought: Keep in mind that even one minor negative could cost you a sale to a photo editor? I think that is a real possibility!

So this brings us round to the basic question. How can we decide if a photo is good or bad? Does the above rule as stated work, or should we look for some other more fully qualified statement? What rule do you use do answer the good/bad question?

And, what if we do find minor negatives? Should we correct them? I think the answer might be yes, if they are correctable. Certainly many are easily dealt with in post. But some can't be corrected in post, but require a re-shoot.

By and large, over the years, I have seen many stunningly beautiful photos that I really liked, but then someone pointed out a minor negative, and suddenly that was all I could see (someone had that experience in the quoted thread). So in some cases, a minor flaw, can ruin a great photo.

Maybe the bottom line is that the "devil is in the details". We are really looking for the ultimate photo with no negatives. Is that an obtainable goal?

Well --- I've asked lots of questions. I hope the above introduction to the question will stimulate many of you to think about this issue and add your comments, rules, suggestions, etc to this thread as an ongoing discussion.

cheers,
rfs