What makes the photo

[roadrunner]

Hello,

I'm not sure if this is an easy question or a hard one. With the wealth of talent at BF, I hope to learn from generous replies...

What are the characteristics that make a great, memorable photograph (across the board, but especially bird photos)?

My work lacks, in my own critical opinion, style/personality and impact. Maybe your opinions will get me to focus first on technique and other fundamentals.

I offer this: sharpness. Do you agree that this is a universal requirement of a good photo?

Thanks,
roadrunner

[nigelblake]

OH MY GAWD, this question will open up a very large recepticle of wiggly fishing bait !!!

There are many things that make or break an image, some might make one image work, whilst the same treatment could well ruin another image.

Sharpness........ very desirable in most cases, however some blur may work better on action or flight shots. the difference in sharpness, whether movement blur or poor focus is really the key here, shoddy focus is not good, but burring caused by weather conditions such as rain, fog or snow will add to the atmosphere of the shot.

[bcurrie]

Roadrunner,

Welcome to the forum on behalf of all the moderators.

I can't agree with Nigel more, this question can end up resulting in numerous opinions. I certainly agree with what Nigel said about sharpness.

Additionally, the question begs to be asked, what makes art "art." It is truly in the eye of the beholder. Generally speaking, I have found the masses love that the stand alone bird shot, with little else in the photo, to be highly appeasing, especially to non-birding folk. In other words, if you are in a forested area and get a great shot of a bird, but it is surrounded by vegetation, I have found the masses will like it less. Granted, you can compensate by lowering your aperture, but I have still found the masses to not like the bird in its truly natural environment. Perhaps Nigel, or others, have discovered differently than I. Now I prefer both types of shots. With the natural shots, it has to really lend to the photo. A stellar photo of a bird on an obvious utility wire is not natural to me. However, a swallow flying into its nest, with all the nests obvious in the photo, is highly natural.

The other thing which makes or breaks a photo is the overall composition. I have seen excellent photos of various subjects, yet the photographer did not take notice of that annoying pipe in the background seemingly coming up through the subject's head. So it looks like the subject has just been impaled. There can be other distracting items in the photo, this is just one example. I think too many times photographers get so excited because they have come across that "perfect" shot that they forget about all else and just take the photo [you can call this, "Brian, the early years." ;)]

[Alastair Rae]

Got to have good composition - colour, structure etc. And simplest of all in birds, the eye in focus!

The biggest problem is that the easiest shot is usually the dullest - a sitter on top of a bush. There is a same-ness about a lot of bird shots.

(I'm no expert but I know what I like!)

[James]

Rule of thirds usually helps a picture i.e. make important features centre around the junction of the lines dividing the picture in three both horizontally and vertically.

James

[helenh]

Hmmm - this *is* a difficult question - because everyone sees something different in a photo and everyone has their own individual tastes.

Personally a photograph has to draw me in before I consider it to be a great piece of work. I guess this is to do with composition and subject matter .... landscapes with dramatic cloud formations that draw the eye through the picture from foreground to horizon really work for me. Sadly for me while my husband can do these I just don't have the knack. Bird photos which put the subject in a natural environment also work well for me.

For me the "turn offs" in a bird photograph are having a single stonking great close up of a bird with no context (ie no background or surroundings). These are great as species shots (or record shots for ID purposes) but they don't do much for me in terms of making me want to wander through a gallery of them.

Basically the advice you will see repeated a lot in BF works incredibly well <to quote the masters> "leave space in front of the bird to give the impression it is looking at something that's out of shot". If you couple this with concentrating on focus and trying to get a nice catchlight in the eye then you'll find you'll get pleasing results.

helenh