What are your photographic turn-ons/turn-offs?

I noticed that nudity comes up in a few people's list of turn-off, mostly when it falls in the "useless" category.

I find there are two kinds of nudity that people care about: prurient, or meaningful. Sometimes a photo can be both, but the popularity of prurient photos on the Intertubes shows that it's easier to make than meaningful nudes.

The sad sack of nude is thus the non-prurient, meaningless one: just a naked girl, somewhere, not doing anything specific, nor representing much of significance.

Nobody really cares about it. It stimulates no sinful intent, and communicates nought.

Well I suppose it's good to get things off your chest, so here goes:

Likes:

Well-executed photographs with interesting subject matter, or ones which convey strong emotions or otherwise draw me in as a viewer (so an entirely personal thing).
Photographs that show some special quality of the light (hard to define exactly what this means).
Photographs of things/people/places that I haven't seen before (especially from the earlier years of photography and therefore liked as much for their content as for their technical qualities).

Dislikes:

Almost all photos of a jetty sticking out into an empty sea. It's not that they're bad pictures, but the internet would be half its present size if they all ceased to exist.
Milky water: flowing down waterfalls, swirling round rocks (with or without strategically placed autumn leaf), washing up on the beach. It just looks downright freakish.
Photographs in exhibitions with incomprehensible captions. I can only take so much "autobiographical ethnobiology" without feeling like biting my hand off.

likes: as a viewer i like to be made aware that the photographer effectively uses the medium in their own unique style
dislikes: repetition, cliché and generally mediocrity

Someone once remarked that to tell whether a photograph is artistic or pornographic; "the artistic photograph always contains a plinth or an urn."

Turn-on: attempting to answer the question.

Turn-off: over-simplification
(yeah im calling you guys out who answered "like: good stuff, dislike:bad stuff")
=]

Gerald C Koch said:

Someone once remarked that to tell whether a photograph is artistic or pornographic; "the artistic photograph always contains a plinth or an urn."

Click to expand...

What does a Grecian urn?

darinwc said:

Turn-on: attempting to answer the question.

Turn-off: over-simplification
(yeah im calling you guys out who answered "like: good stuff, dislike:bad stuff")
=]

Click to expand...

i guess this is me

for turn ons

i am open to most types of photography, i don't really mind nudes or
things if they are accidental, as long as some thought was part of the scheme ..

as for turn offs ..

labels ...
and i get tired of when there is no self expression
or nothing that expresses ownership of an image ... but instead just
copying someone else's style or their tripod holes &C ...

I, too, like accidental nudity.

2F/2F said:

I, too, like accidental nudity.

Click to expand...

nothing like a "costume malfunction" ( JJ )

Likes: I like geometric patterns found in everyday objects. I like a representation of surface and texture. I like composition, including form and focus. I like discovering new photographic techniques, paper negatives, cyanotypes, chemical free, pin hole, and the perspective and point of view that some of these processes both produce and allow. I like photgraphy that demonstrates a level of mastery, which is usually way above my own (I like to be impressed). I like the things that photography seems able to present as a unique media (I like knowing that a thing is a photograph, and nothing else can look like it). And I like images where I say, "No kidding, that's a photograph?" I like photographs that take me to places and situations I probably will never go in person. I like photographs that open doors or windows and allow a look inside, or outside (but I don't think it's neccessary to open doors or windows simply to shock or insult). I like the accidents in photography that result in unusual images. I like regular objects rendered as "priceless artifacts" (lavish lighting and set dressing on a water glass). Come to think of it, I like artifacts, old cars, old houses, old barns, old buildings, old towns, old trees, old people. I personally like to document my surroundings, and appreciate others who do the same (I like seeing how people see things). Philosophically, I enjoy the fact that photography is a medium of communication. I like beauty, whatever that might be.
What I don't like: I've been working my way through the gallery, I can only think of a very small number of photographs where I found my self saying: "I don't like that". In between what I can say I don't like, and what I can say I really like, is great number of images that just missed by an RCH, er change that to eyelash. The trully wonderfull image, and the trully terrible image are not that common. In all the rest there's maybe one or two things to like, and take away with the idea that you, or I, might be able to improve on. Or to avoid...

Yay:
- good / unusual light
- subtle (or not) use of mixed flash & natural light (strobist kind of thing) for powerful emphasis
- dramatic skies, including PITCH F**KING BLACK and/or night landscapes
- IR
- photos that make you go "wtf"
- photos that convey an emotion (this is something I find *really* hard to do)
- strong use of colour (I'm a sucker for RVP50)
- good HDR, i.e. using it as a semi-automated dodge/burn tool
- eyes you can't take your eyes off
- urbex/decay
- close/wide perspective, unusual angles
- fisheye where it doesn't look fishy due to subject form (the close/wide thing again)
- thisisnthappiness (NSFW warning): there's a lot of good in there amongst the crap, hipsterism and helvetica & batman fetishes

Nay:
- most street photography (love the concept, don't like 99.9% of what I see)
- HDR as a substitute for the right light
- mundane, pointless or uncomposed photos
- obvious technical incompetence even if masquerading as arty
- bad cliche nudes: abstract/landscape, skinny girl in a corner, girl-in-the-woods
- sunsets

My likes and dislikes in photography in general:

Likes:

-Tonality, Tonality, Tonality!!
-Prints that make me feel emotion, or squint because of bright sunlight
-Discovering new and exciting subjects with my cameras
-Studying subjects and shooting film
-Pushing Film
-Toning Prints
-Viewing negatives with a loupe on the lightbox and drooling over the sharpness
-Pulling a print from the wash and admiring the beauty

Dislikes:

-HDR
-Anything over-photo shopped (pretty much everything on the web (flickr, photo.net))
-Most things digital
-People that blow up digital shots to 30" x 40" and talk about how much detail there is (when really you can count every single pixel)
-Digital photographers who say "Ah, I see they still make film"
-People that talk about gear more than actually shoot
-When people look at you funny because you're holding your camera up to your eye to shoot a photo
-Dust, Dust, Dust!!
-When you're out and about and see an amazing shot or amazing light and don't have a camera
-Shots of people anywhere below the neck, it's just so overdone in street photography

As you can see there's more dislikes than likes. Not sure what that means... damn digital

Likes:

Unusual street captures... those keeper moments you get only when you are least expecting them!
Unique expressions/faces.
Crazy colors (I love toy cameras)!
Angles (when appropriate... it's hard to explain).
Off centered subject matter.

Bored of:
flowers.
birds.
crap in the name of street photography (who cares about a dumpster in the alleyway anyway).
boring poses (once again, it's hard to explain)

Just want to make a note that, some people can make even the flowers and birds and those dumpsters look pretty cool somehow... I've seen them. So in general, I don't really think there's a rule to what is a turn on or what is a turn off... it's all contextual...

Pro
Art deco
Industrial
Abstract
Surreal
Cinematic feel
Lines
Blur
Double exposures
Natural light
The magic hour (the colors and long shadows)
B/W
Slide
Cross processing slide
Fast lenses
Bokeh
Good metadata (e.g. I shot this photo using Pan-F 35mm, box ASA, 1/60, f 1.4, Xtol 1+1, etc...)

Con
The flash
Cookie cutter shots (e.g., a family portrait where all are wearing the same thing or similar and the smiles looked forced/tired or are saying the dreaded 'cheese')

Michel Hardy-Vallée said:

What does a Grecian urn?

Click to expand...

I don't know how much he "urns" but he is "ode" money. Thanks for the pun, I love them and consider them a high form of humor. Of course, I also like limericks.

like....

contact prints (small perfect tonality)
alt prints made with love
carbon prints of detailed images (relief)
matt fibre prints
simpe studio subjects
street shots (but only when nobody is aware of camera)
ugly portraits
ultrawide angle pinhole shots on 8x10 film
weather rain and wind especially
squirrel pictures
sad suicidal pet pics


dislike....

sunsets and sunrise shots
too much makeup and puffy hair in portraits
back yard pictures
heavy handed alt printers
looking at pics online
large prints
bokeh
white areas ruining picture shape
flowers
tree roots and tractor wheels

oh dear , most photography is boring really, the fun is in the making

But Paulie, I have a wonderful carbon print (tons of relief) that is a detail study of tree roots...

Turn offs
Photographers with the attitude that if you do not love their image, then there is something wrong with you.
Images that seem to have no point, except to dirty up perfectly good paper and film.

Turn ons
Any image that makes me feel that I am seeing what the photographer saw in his/her mind the moment they released the shutter. No matter how many times I have seen that type of image done before.

I have a few more turn offs to add, some that surprisingly have not been mentioned yet:
-Rusted cars, trucks, tractors, motorcycles, bicycles, boilers, metal drums, gears, etc., in a grassy or wheat field. These pictures are all composed in the same way and have never been interesting, regardless how "perfect" the rust looks. There's a reason why those things are out in the field - because they're crap. Stop photographing it please.
-Waterfalls - yes, why don't we all do long exposure shots so the water looks boringly smooth?
-Wooded streams - desktop wallpaper material.

Double the heinous points if it is done in HDR (I've given up waiting for superman on that), or if it appears in a photography magazine as an advertisement or lens test (as if the pictures aren't already)

ahahahaha

turn offs: old traditionalists farts on apug

turn ons: a photographers process

wonderlustking said:

turn offs: old traditionalists farts on apug

Click to expand...

+1

hating on something because it's not what you do; some APUGers are all too good at that.

anything can be good if its done well!!!!

wonderlustking said:

turn offs: old traditionalists farts on apug

Click to expand...

Great artists respect tradition even though they may not embrace it for themselves.