Interesting list. I think I’ll try some of them.

Blogging as a photographer? Stuck searching for a topic? Bookmark this list of blog topics for photographers and perhaps it can occasionally jog your memory.

via 33 Blog Topics for Photographers – WP Photographers.

I can’t say exactly what makes a great photograph, but I can share what makes a boring photograph:

Poor composition (cluttered background, awkward framing, lack of focus on primary subject)

Boring subject matter

Lack of emotion, gesture, or facial expression

Cliche (Eiffel Tower and puddles)

Easy to photograph (flowers, tourist attractions)

Ugly or cheesy aesthetic (HDR, selective color)

So to simply make a great photograph, do the opposite of the list above.

via Please Tell Me My Photos Suck (And How I Can Improve).

I regularly read Eric Kim’s blog and enjoy his thoughts on photography. However, I had to take exception to this one. It’s just so subjective and dismissive of any type of photography other than the street photography he inclines to. Let’s take a look at some of his points:

Poor composition (cluttered background, awkward framing, lack of focus on primary subject). OK this one I can go along with.
Boring subject matter. Very subjective statement. What’s interesting to one person might be extremely boring to another.
Lack of emotion, gesture, or facial expression. If you like taking pictures of landscapes, or still lifes you don’t generally get a lot of emotions, gestures or facial expression. His statement show a bias towards a particular type of photography.
Cliche (Eiffel Tower and puddles). I’d tend to agree with this, but nowadays almost everything has been photographed millions of times, so almost everything is a cliche. The trick would seem to be to try to approach a cliche’d subject in a new way – without of course making it too obvious (e.g. using obviously crazy camera angles just for the sake of being different.
Easy to photograph (flowers, tourist attractions). What can I say? Again this statement shows a bias against certain types of photography. I really don’t see why just because something is easy to photograph it is inherently boring. I imagine that Edward Weston’s peppers where not that hard to photograph, but that doesn’t make them boring.
Ugly or cheesy aesthetic (HDR, selective color). I’m not particularly fond of HDR or selective color myself and these techniques can certainly be over used – and often are. However, I’m sure that there are many interesting photos taken using them. The mere use of a technique doesn’t of necessity make a picture boring.

This statement from later on in the post says it all: “I rarely trust the feedback of another photographer if I don’t like their work.” Surely this leads to a kind of “group think”. Just because you don’t like another persons work doesn’t mean that they don’t have anything useful to say. I don’t particularly incline to street photography, but I would certainly listen to anything accomplished photographers like Lee Friedlander, Bruce Gilden, Garry Winogrand (if he were still alive) had to say.

Maybe Mr. Kim should move away from street photography for a while and try something different. Take some pictures of flowers and see if he can come up with something different. From the relatively few pictures he shows he seems to be a talented photographer (much better than I am for example) so he should be able to come up with something. Many, probably most of my pictures are boring, but that’s not because of any of the reasons Mr. Kim lists. It’s because I lack the talent to make them more interesting. My hope is that through study and practice I can improve. We’ll see.