What Is Meant By the "Impact" of a Photo?

[TomBrooklyn]

What is meant by the "impact" of a photo?

[samueli]

How it makes you feel, how it draws and keeps your interest, how it compels you to look at it and how it stays with you after you've seen it.

[RDKirk]

"Impact" is going to involve something outside the normal visual clutter and noise. It could be any of the different elements of an image or a convergeance of several elements, but it will be some characteristic that is unusual in some visual sense, and retains its unusual characteristic even upon reflection.

What I mean by "retaining its unusual characteristic," is that we can be drawn to something by cheap theatrics (the visual equivalent of someone pulling a gun and firing it into the air) but when the second glance reveals that it's really just the same old stuff, that's not an example of true impact.

What samueli said.

[golfecho]

Examples:

The explosion of the USS Arizona photo

The flames exploding out from the second tower on 9/11 when we all suddenly realized the events were no accident

The picture on the cover of National Geographic of the young Afghan girl, circa 1997

The picture of the US Soldier in the back of the helicopter, crying in pain as he realized he was holding his dieing buddy

I'll bet there are lost of others out there that everyone can think of . . .

Anyone?

[OdiN1701]

The force it exerts on an object when you drop it from a distance.

[chauncey]

What is meant by the "impact" of a photo
That's one of those indefinable things, kinda like the Supreme Court when one of them said regarding pornography, " I can't define it, but I know it when I see it"

[gofer]

What is meant by the "impact" of a photo?

I'd say it's impossible to define as the impact of any image will depend on the frame of mind of the person looking at it.

[TomBrooklyn]

I'd say it's impossible to define... No, not impossible to define. The question is not what is the impact of a particular photo on a particular person at a particular time. Of course nobody could know that.

[JeffreyG]

It when the nail in the wall falls out and a framed picture smacks you in the head.

[TomBrooklyn]

Examples:
The explosion of the USS Arizona photo
The flames exploding out from the second tower on 9/11 when we all suddenly realized the events were no accident
The picture on the cover of National Geographic of the young Afghan girl, circa 1997
Your giving examples of photos that had a very strong impact on a lot of people. So what's the (or a) definition of it (Impact?)

[TomBrooklyn]

How it makes you feel, how it draws and keeps your interest, how it compels you to look at it and how it stays with you after you've seen it.
This sounds like a good definition.

[k_wakasugi]

Sounds like we're doing someone's homework assignment for them :p

[TomBrooklyn]

Sounds like we're doing someone's homework assignment for them :p
How about this? Not many people understand what the impact of a photo is and/or can't articulate it. And your against education, maybe?

[k_wakasugi]

Haha wow, relax sir. I was just joking around. Btw, it's "you're".

See, I'm all for educating!

[Guapo]

That sledgehammer in the gut feeling you get when you look at a photo that is beyond anything you could ever hope to achieve in your photographic pursuits.

[rral22]

That sledgehammer in the gut feeling you get when you look at a photo that is beyond anything you could ever hope to achieve in your photographic pursuits.

I thought that was just jealousy. ;)