What makes photos "POP"

airfrogusmc wrote in post #10512642
Yeah I was agreeing with your rule of thirds comment. And backed it up with a big gun (Weston)

LOL...I thought maybe you were....then I wasn't sure....but now I know. Sometimes the best photos break all the rules.

Elements are great for training the 'eye', but they do not always apply.

I've seen where a simple local contrast enhancement improved "pop" for photos.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com …ontrast-enhancement.shtml

It depends on how you define "pop", but to me it's about how the primary foreground subjects "jump" out at you, which inevitably has to do with a low depth of field. I'd just thought I'd make that clarification, as the people who include landscapes (i.e. high depth of field/everything in focus) as being "pop"-capable don't have a compatible definition to my own. Which is fair enough, since as I just mentioned - it all depends on how you define pop.

For my definition, I've found the key ingredients to be:
1) good lighting. In particular, quality lighting on your subject and background lighting which is most often slightly underexposed or of less quality/higher uniformity.
2) a relatively low depth of field.
3) post-processing, if needed.

(or if you're feeling lazy, just get an 85L and shoot wide-open. kidding..)

Here are a few of mine which I consider to have "pop". Lenses used were 35L, 85L, 85/1.8, 17-55 (not in that order).

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Collin,

^^^^^

Shots 2,3 & 4 are stunning.

The stuff that matters have already been said numerous times so i will not repeat that again

But that last photo of the green lizard looks great, nice depth of field in that one and the range of colors are sweet too. Good shot!

/ Magnus

TGrundvig wrote in post #10514366
LOL...I thought maybe you were....then I wasn't sure....but now I know. Sometimes the best photos break all the rules.

Elements are great for training the 'eye', but they do not always apply.

The problem is when you train the eye that way then it sorta becomes second nature and then it becomes what rule of comp do you follow. The rule the painters used the golden rule or the diagonal rule or the one some of the 35mm photographers came up with because in their opinion the rule of thirds worked great for a 4X5 format but wasn't ideal for the 2X3 (35mm) format, this rule of is the rule 4/5ths and pushes the point out farther towards the edges of the frame thus using the frame dimensions, in their opinion, better.

Someone a whole lot smarter than I am and one truly great photographer gave me the best advise and the only rule I usually follow and he said; "either everything in the image is supporting your visual statement or hurting it."

Look!! A pop out lens!!!

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airfrogusmc wrote in post #10516113
Someone a whole lot smarter than I am and one truly great photographer gave me the best advise and the only rule I usually follow and he said; "either everything in the image is supporting your visual statement or hurting it."

Ahh...very nice! That is so true because there are many, many great images that do not conform to obvious elements. But then again, there are SO MANY elements that most shots will have more than one and the photographer won't even realize it.

I guess for me, personally, I would like to understand the 'why' behind what is supporting the visual statement. I think it just comes with my analytical nature. 'Just because' has never been a satisfying answer for me. For me, understanding the elements and following them like a rule book are two different things.

TGrundvig wrote in post #10516919
Ahh...very nice! That is so true because there are many, many great images that do not conform to obvious elements. But then again, there are SO MANY elements that most shots will have more than one and the photographer won't even realize it.

I guess for me, personally, I would like to understand the 'why' behind what is supporting the visual statement. I think it just comes with my analytical nature. 'Just because' has never been a satisfying answer for me. For me, understanding the elements and following them like a rule book are two different things.

Well there are many great books that can help you learn what makes up a great photograph. Theres many things and subject placement is just one of many visual elements that go into making a great photograph. Then theres content, line, form, shape, color relationships (in a color image), hue, tone, etc and these things all have to support what the photographer is trying to say. Most great photographs work on several levels and do take time to reveal themselves to the viewer.

Heres a couple of things Ralph Gibson had to say about some of this.
"A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there."
Ralph Gibson

And
"To communicate requires that those who view the work also understand. Fortunately, people respond to visual stimulus on more than one level. Abstraction, for instance, has always played a big role in artistic expression, and it is becoming more accepted in photographs. There’s nothing new about abstraction in painting, but for some reason people respect painting more than photography. This might be because photographs are so widely used by the media in this culture that they are regarded as mere ephemera… you look at a photograph once and then turn the page."
Ralph Gibson

Heres something Adams said that I think is relevant here.
"To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things. Impression is not enough. Design, style, technique, - these, too, are not enough. Art must reach further than impression or self-revelation. Art, said Alfred Stieglitz, is the affirmation of life. And life, or its eternal evidence is everywhere. Some photographers take reality as the sculptors take wood and stone and upon it impose the dominations of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and elevation. A true photograph need not be explained, nor can be contained in words."
Ansel Adams

And heres what Adams had to say about rules. Kinda in line with the quote I posted earlier from Weston in post #72
"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."
Ansel Adams

I've spent a lifetime trying to take photographs and 99.9% of anything before about 5 years ago was rubbish. I knew all the composition rules and got the technical aspects right often enough that I should have had more success, but did not.

Then quite suddenly things changed. I still don't understand what or how and certainly cannot explain it, but my unconsious brain seems to have figured it out without me. Maybe even despite me!

I no longer even think about the composition rules, so ignoring them comes easy. But the rules took many serious artists many hundreds of years of blood, sweat and tears, so it's a foolish to ignore them. Just use them as they are intended, as guides, not cast iron rules.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #10517095
Well there are many great books that can help you learn what makes up a great photograph. Theres many things and subject placement is just one of many visual elements that go into making a great photograph. Then theres content, line, form, shape, color relationships (in a color image), hue, tone, etc and these things all have to support what the photographer is trying to say. Most great photographs work on several levels and do take time to reveal themselves to the viewer.

Heres a couple of things Ralph Gibson had to say about some of this.
"A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there."
Ralph Gibson

And
"To communicate requires that those who view the work also understand. Fortunately, people respond to visual stimulus on more than one level. Abstraction, for instance, has always played a big role in artistic expression, and it is becoming more accepted in photographs. There’s nothing new about abstraction in painting, but for some reason people respect painting more than photography. This might be because photographs are so widely used by the media in this culture that they are regarded as mere ephemera… you look at a photograph once and then turn the page."
Ralph Gibson

Heres something Adams said that I think is relevant here.
"To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces and record the qualities of nature and humanity which live or are latent in all things. Impression is not enough. Design, style, technique, - these, too, are not enough. Art must reach further than impression or self-revelation. Art, said Alfred Stieglitz, is the affirmation of life. And life, or its eternal evidence is everywhere. Some photographers take reality as the sculptors take wood and stone and upon it impose the dominations of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and elevation. A true photograph need not be explained, nor can be contained in words."
Ansel Adams

And heres what Adams had to say about rules. Kinda in line with the quote I posted earlier from Weston in post #72
"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."
Ansel Adams

Great quotes! It sure makes me think differently about the rules. Thank you for sharing those!

TGrundvig wrote in post #10517536
Great quotes! It sure makes me think differently about the rules. Thank you for sharing those!

You're welcome. You can learn a lot from the greats by not only reading their words but buy studying their work. I think a big mis conception is that a good photograph is absorbed and understood immediately and thats just usually not the case. Also to many newbies think in terms of getting one good photo instead of in terms of creating bodies of work which in turn helps to develop a personal style and vision.

Following the same rules that everyone follows like Weston said "Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches." Edward Weston and I couldn't agree more. I mean take a stroll around any photograph site and see how many of those images that are following those rules look similar. See how some have created a "perfect" rule of thirds image that looks no different than many of the others and as a result made an image that reveals nothing more than a visual exercise. You can't tell one photographers work from the next and many times missing things that are not supporting their visual statement and therefore are only confusing the image.