wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

Sort of like the pot calling kettle black - Dave

joderale Loc: Pensacola, Florida

Exactly. There are several poignant photos in that collection that are technically poor. But they are still great.
When subject, story, composition, and technique all come together, you have a masterpiece.

Glenn Harve

Content is the entire point of a good photograph. Technical quality is always secondary. A technically pefect photo of nothing is still nothing. An imperfect photo of something is always something.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The more compelling the content, the less viewers care about technical perfection. The medium is not the message. The message is the message (Sorry, Marshall McLuhan). Medium colors and enhances message.

Think of Robert Capa’s D-Day photos... the 1968 Pulitzer winning photo of the spontaneous street execution of a VC prisoner by a South Vietnamese officer...

That does not mean that technical excellence isn’t important! It merely means that message trumps medium. We had fuzzy B&W TV for a few decades before color became popular. We had AM long before FM, and 78 RPM vinyl before CDs. Somehow, low bandwidth / low fidelity still worked.

It’s a different story for certain subjects such as landscapes, where oodles of details can enhance the impact.

I think there is a point where technical flaws become overwhelmingly intrusive. But that’s subject/message dependent.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

Again are we trying to telling a story nor make a "Salable" picture. Are making Pictures or taking document ( recording an event or subject) Reason for the picture. Intent of picture. Great for quality or content CAN BE BOTH. No one cared about the picture of the Hindenburg's quality it was the situation.
That's why many newspapers don't use good photographers any more just the reporter take the picture--the fact not the quality.
SO WHAT IS A GOOD PICTURE depends on why it was taken.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If you have to lower your expectations to fit your results, so be it.

I suggest rather than making excuses for your results that you consider instead: if you want better pictures, take better pictures.

If you have to tell a long-winded story on why it's a keeper, it's likely not a keeper ...

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

1. How long is "long winded?"

2. Is this post an answer to the Original Post - that there is no place for 'technically flawed' photographs, that content and story are never important if the photograph is technically flawed in any way?

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

In the long game, technical issues are relative--and flexible. When film was slow and lenses slower, styles adapted, and the softness of the old lenses was considered part of the image effect. Some old issues remain--for instance, because lenses could not be sharp front to back in pictures (limits of aperture and of tilts and swings), it became stylish to accept and even to accentuate this shortcoming into a stylistic choice. Many of our choices about style and composition are in some way compensations for technical limitations and options. Sometimes people overcook an image because they can, and they want to show they can.

Most of us like to think that our palette includes many possible stylistic effects. According to our mood we might want to look like Steiglitz for one shot, Adams in another, and Henri-Bresson in another, depending on our mood but also upon our tools or our situation. If what we have is a 35mm film camera, there are inherent limits.

The great photojournalist Robert Capa landed with the first marines at Normandy, and got a great many pictures with two 35mm Contax rangefinders. At some point, he had to stop shooting and help load wounded men into return landing craft--which he continued to do all day and through the night. When he got back to London with his negatives, the Life Magazine darkroom only had a young boy working (the men were on beaches), and the boy left the wet negatives under the heat dryer till most of them were ruined (giving new meaning to the term "overcooked processing." Yet many were used, even on the cover. In the circumstances, the limited technical quality almost enhanced the content impact, yes?

https://www.magnumphotos.com/newsroom/conflict/robert-capa-d-day-omaha-beach/

Note that his memoir was titled, "Slightly Out Of Focus."

elent

Using street photography or investigative journalism, for example, you usually only have moments to bring to bear and shoot. Content rules in this type of environment.

CatMarley Loc: North Carolina

Depends entirely on "How flawed is flawed?",, Here is a seriously flawed image. The Marine's feet should have been included. Nevertheless, the image and the story are poignant with meaning and the image "works".

(Download)

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

Bill, I used Capa as an example in my response below--before I saw your post--we agree.

However, landscapes can be just as much "the decisive moment," though they usually are not. The most beautiful photograph I ever saw was Ansel Adam's own print of Moonrise Over Hernandez, when he frantically raced the clock at the moment he was losing light. It was underexposed, but he developed it accordingly in special baths and took a week to hand-make one print of it. The print I saw was on display in a gallery in Memphis. I was a beginner and did not know the picture, but I stood there staring at it for 10 minutes before I looked to see who the photographer was.

Of course, I have seen many thousands of published pictures in books, magazines, and papers, but if that is all we could see (no actual prints of negatives on paper), we would have a sad limit in our search for greatness. To me it seems similar to the custom today to see digital images on a screen rather than on paper--no screen can compare well with an exquisite print.

Charles 46277 Loc: Fulton County, KY

I forget who said it--"A snapshot is a photograph that gets the feet in."

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

A thanks to Joe for his content. (Page one, post #3).

User ID

Clear as mud. Narrative content not
delivered. Technically, failed. I have
no disagreement with your intended
message ... nor any agreement, cuz
it's so well hidden. Exposition ?

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

To me the ultimate answer is as it always is, "it depends." I take a lot of travel photos to include in my stories about my trips. I want to convey a sense of place and maybe time to my audience and while I strive for technical excellence that isn't always what I get yet I feel the sense of place as it fits into my story, history or other attributes of the place or whatever is more important than the technical excellence.

Yet in the last few years I've found myself more interested in improving the technical aspects of my photos which is why I've gone from point and shoot to dslr (crop frame) to mirrorless (full frame). Along with that I've been working on light, depth of field, focus and composition. I believe you can have one without the other but I strive to get both as well as I can.