I've run the .pdf's through AI (Copilot GPT5.1) to convert to text. The resulting text may well contain conversion errors.
What makes a good picture?
(Popular Photography, February 1956)
Experts’ answers reveal an extraordinary diversity of approaches to one of the most important questions in the world of photography
Ansel Adams, photographer
To me, a good photograph is one which shows expressive and interpretative integrity; in which the subject is approached and photographed with taste and comprehension. The good photograph must have an appropriate craft quality and sensitivity of “seeing.” The obligation of clarity is paramount—although this clarity is more of mind and heart than of the optical and material perfections of the medium. Photographers often tell fibs, but photography never lies!
Alexey Brodovitch, art director, Harper’s Bazaar
A picture which affects you emotionally, which stimulates thought; a picture which you can never forget, which you love for some reason or which irritates you; a picture which gives you the impact of intrigue, novelty, originality, or shock... These very personal reactions are usually achieved by subject matter, composition, quality of print—but sometimes the very opposite is the key, when these orthodox principles are absent, whether by intention or error... This (I guess) makes a picture good.
Anton Bruehl, photographer
I believe that subject matter is of first importance in a great photograph, but I also believe in photographic quality. I believe a good photograph must make use of this inherent quality that no other medium has, of recording accurately and beautifully the subject matter chosen by the photographer... I do not believe it is necessary to throw a photograph out of focus, move the camera during exposure, use trick printing or developing to inject “mood” into the picture.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer
You are asking me what makes a good picture. For me, it is the harmony between subject and form that leads each one of these elements to its maximum of expression and vigor.
Sey Chassler, managing editor, Pageant
Impact makes a good picture; not action—impact, a visual impression which hits something in the viewer. It can hit anything from anger and tenderness to the yen for knowledge and the desire for information. It must be clear, though. It cannot contain symbols known only to the photographer. It cannot reach that level of subtlety at which the photographer is forced to explain it. It can be abstract as a circle or detailed as a dictionary, but it must give something all by itself. A good picture doesn’t need critics, artists, journalists, philosophers, or the photographer himself to explain it. It must carry its own weight and deliver its own impact.
JOSEPH COSTA, photo supervisor, King Features—Sunday Mirror
The question is as boundless as asking, “How high is up?”. Good pictures in photography and the preferences of people are as varied as paintings and the tastes of connoisseurs in art galleries... The one indispensable ingredient is that a picture must be an eye-stopper. Whatever the subject matter, composition, lighting, camera angle, or general presentation must be such as to catch and hold the interest.
ANDRÉ DE DIÈNES, photographer
If a photograph so dominates the viewer by surprising, startling, horrifying, amusing, or exalting him, it must be a good picture. But there is such a wide scale of human intelligence and sensitivity that what impresses one may leave another unmoved. The best photographers seek to communicate great human emotions like sorrow and joy, horror and love, beauty and perfection, as well as sensuality and wit, and they hope that their photographs will be seen by people who understand them.
JACOB DESCHIN, camera editor, The New York Times
A good picture has content, meaningfully expressed (the photographer has a point to make, and makes it), and effectively communicated (the photographer is sufficiently a master of his craft to make his point stick). Generally, a good picture is felt rather than merely understood (intellectually). Because it describes an experience in visual terms, words are inadequate as a measure of its value. The observer responds to a “good” picture, remains untouched by a “bad” one. Only a “good” picture itself can tell us what makes a good picture. Let’s see the picture, I say.
ALFRED EISENSTAEDT, photographer
A good picture to my mind is a relative thing, depending on the observer. A good picture is what pleases me, though it may not and often does not please others. What I look for in a picture is great simplicity. It does not have to be a still-life picture but it should present one idea with clarity and should not be a confusion of so many elements that the viewer cannot tell in a quick glance the meaning of the picture.
ADOLPH FASSBENDER, photographic teacher
A good picture is a replica of a visual image conceived by an artist who has the imagination, artistic and technical ability to transform his conception into a vivid representation. If his interpretation, coming from within his heart, is understood and admired by more and more people, success is assured.
ED FEININGER, photographer
There is no formula for a good photograph. Mediocre pictures may follow a formula, good ones seldom do. When the visual tools are used just right, the design, lighting, mood, and emotion come together to just the right point, and that point hits you and you know what the photographer meant—that’s a good picture.
ANDREAS FEININGER, photographer, author
Good photographs enrich the experience of the observer by showing him more than he would have seen if confronted with the subject, because good photographs clarify, emphasize, dramatize, capture the “decisive moment,” or offer a revealing close-up view—in short, depict the very essence of the respective subject or event.
PHILIPPE HALSMAN, photographer
A photographer worries about composition, timing, lighting, texture, design, unusual angles, print quality, etc.—but all this is not enough if the photographer has no depth and perception. A portrait is not a portrait if the very essence of the subject is not captured; a picture of a scene is just a snapshot if its meaning and emotion are not caught. But even then, everything is futile if the onlooker has no sensitivity and imagination.
NORRIS HARKNESS, syndicated camera columnist
The elements that make a good picture must be unobtrusive. The arrangement of the material, the action, the lighting, the balancing of the processing factors that constitutes good photographic quality—all must make their contribution without being obvious about it. And, with all the mechanical and artistic elements suited to the subject, a good picture must first be a good photograph expressing something worth expressing.
YOUSUF KARSH, photographer
Obviously, the essential can lie only in the perceptivity of the photographer—his sensitivity, training, craftsmanship, and experience. A good picture is an intensely personal thing - it rests first in the mind and eye of the artist. His apparatus is secondary but technique is not. Brady worked with comparatively primitive equipment but few photographers have yet arisen to excel him. Why? For one reason — his superb technical command of his medium plus those other factors already noted. To-day the general tendency is toward technical sloppiness... toward a complete indifference to technique. Human interest is not enough. It must be accompanied by excellent craftsmanship. A good picture is never an accident — it may appear so. It is always a product of the artistic mind and eye, and back of that is years of study, thought, training, and experience.
BEAUMONT NEWHALL, historian, curator George Eastman House
A good photograph says something so well that it cannot be said better any other way. It may be factual or poetic, but always it will be so true that from it we can learn of life. A good photograph is made by one who knows and respects his medium.
IRVING PENN, photographer
A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart, leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.
JOHN RAWLINGS, photographer
There are basically two kinds of pictures; those where the photographer has some measure of control (over backgrounds, lighting, movement), and those in which the photographer is in the right place at the right moment, when something vital is happening, and has the ability to capture it. In this second group we find “great” pictures. In the first group, with which I am identified (fashion, beauty, travel, theatre), perhaps the secret is that the good picture arouses intense interest in the viewer, so that he identifies himself with the situation. Perhaps this kind of good picture helps us to measure ourselves, to increase our knowledge and understanding of one another. Certainly, a good picture must be eloquent enough to get at the emotions of people.
SANFORD H. ROTH, photographer
The culmination of the photographer’s life experience together with its impact and effect on him is a great and constantly present influence. Through his use of line, form, texture, light, contrast, composition, and subject matter we finally see the emergence of a portrait of the photographer himself with his hopes, fears, truths, and indulgences actually imposed on the photograph. Subject matter? Cézanne approached the apple and the hillside and was rewarded with immortality. A hundred photographers can approach a given objective and come away with the sum total of themselves. The photographer, the man or woman, is the major contributing element — the conclusive element. Only after him can we go on with the speculations having to do with optics, chemistry, and fine machine-tooled instruments related to photography.
ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN, technical director, Look magazine
Anybody can take a good picture. Technical progress in photography has reached the point where the means for producing good photographs is available to all. Good pictures contain those characteristics which recognize and emphasize the photographic process. These are: 1. The reproduction of fine detail and texture. 2. The accurate rendition or willful distortion of perspective through proper choice of lens and viewpoint. 3. A range of tonal values from light to dark, which may be compressed or extended at will. The ability to stop motion, to capture the exact instant or the decisive moment... But more important is a recognition of what makes a great picture. In a great picture the camera discovers significance in things which seem unimportant. It reveals a new way of observing the commonplace and enriches the visible world of infinite detail. It opens up new vistas and bares the aspects of people and their environment with unequalled revelation.
