My wife and I took a trip to the Ohio Historical Center on Sunday and they had a wonderful display of the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs on display (here's a link to a story about it for those interested http://columbusoh.about.com …-at-historical-center.htm
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The exhibition was absolutely stunning and I would recommend it to anyone remotely within the area. The exhibit was very moving and I couldn't believe the amount of emotion it generated within myself. The prints were all quite large with a story printed next to each photo.
One thing I did notice was that many of these awesome photos lacked certain technical elements. For instance, many were not really sharp...and some were very grainy. The technical aspects we seem to covet so much on these forums. That said....even though many photos weren't technically perfect, it didn't take anything away from the emotion and feelings each photo conveyed to the viewer. For myself, it was a real eye opener....the subject, situation, emotion and artistic framing of a photo can easily trump the small technical "mistakes" of a photo.
I'm not trying to suggest that the technical aspect of photography can or should be overlooked but I think that some of us can get to "hung up on it"....what really makes a photo great is the emotion and feeling you can convey through the photograph.
The technical aspect of photography is tangible and relatively easy to teach and point out...the artistic and emotional side of photography is not so tangible thus it's tougher to explain and teach how to achieve it.
After viewing such awesome photographs, I'm humbled and also inspired....it gave me insight to what great photography is really all about.
I wanted to post this as a recent observation of mine and I would encourage any comments or conversation on the subject 
