What is a Good Photograph? (2)

Self-portrait: Locked in quarantine in Covid-19 epidemic.

My previous post dealing with this question mainly addressed the artistic element of it. It neglected at least one important issue in the definition of “good photography”, which is the question: “How do we look in the photograph?” The previous post did not take into account that when it comes to photographs whose purpose is to represent us at our best, or to preserve the memory of our existence at a certain place or with certain people, it is very important to us that we “look good” in the photo. Since this category can be completely separated from the other definitions of “good art”, which I discussed in the previous post, I thought it would be appropriate to add a post that deals with this important view of what defines good photography. This time I have chosen to be more subjective, personal and exposed than in any previous post, as much as this medium allows me, and to deal with myself.

In addition to what I said above about self-photography, it is advisable to mention another genre of photography, namely “portrait photography” (or: portrait), in which these two aspects may be integrated. In portrait photography, we usually want the photographed figure to turn out well, or at least representative of the person in the photograph, but to also to have an important artistic value, that is, of some kind of philosophical – social – value-unique – creative statement.

A representative self photograph, younger in more than ten years. Smiling-reserved, because subjectively I don’t have good smiling photos. What my children tell me about my photos is irrelevant at all.

The question “Do I look good in this photo?” It is a significant question, and inevitably connects to the question of “What is beautiful?” and “What is beauty?” It deals mainly with the photograph’s subject, and less with the photograph as a whole. Since one of the universal parameters that define beauty is a youthful appearance, then not infrequently, and especially when it comes to people as old as I am or even much less, we will look at photographs from this point of view. This is almost universal: in representative formal photographs, many people prefer to display photographs of themselves at younger ages. This also means that in representative photos, there is an advantage to photos that are softer (less sharp), do not clearly show all skin blemishes, emphasize better qualities that are socially accepted as beautiful, and manage to hide what is less acceptable – preferably in a such a way that effort will be invisible to the eye.

Waiting in the emergency room. A moment after the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced, I found myself waiting at the nearest hospital’s emergency room. All the findings were fine, and it gave me an excellent opportunity for a selfie.

I do not intend to go into the depth of the answers to the question of what beauty is in a man or a woman (some of which are similar, and some of which are different). These are topics that I taught in my academic courses following in-depth studies carried out by evolutionary psychology in the nineties, and deal with the accepted social standards of beauty: the universal ones (ie: genetic) and the cultural ones. Among them are criteria related to proportionality and symmetry, to hormonal effects on facial properties, and much more. However, setting aside beauty as it is perceived in society, culturally and genetically, there is also the very subjective question: Do we like our own photo? Indeed, it really is a subjective question, because some people like their photographs a lot, taking a lot of selfies, for example, and others who hate them, without any necessary relation to the objective standards of beauty.

Beyond the Arctic Circle. This is also an old photo, over ten years old. This time, the background is an even older photo, about 30 years from today, that I took beyond the Arctic Circle, in northern Norway, at about a quarter past midnight, in full daylight, and with the fresh snow of August. Do I look good here? – Relative to my own photos, I think I look very good here, but both the question and the answer are entirely subjective. When I do not have an objective judgment tool to decide, I usually conclude that I just don’t know.

I have included many photos of myself in this post. To be honest: I do not like the way I look in any of them, so I only take a few photos of myself, and am reticent when I present them here. Still, as I am the most available model available to myself, every now and then I nevertheless take a photograph of myself, especially when I feel that there is some kind of artistic expression or statement I can make with this photo. That is, when I take a photograph of myself I mainly think about my feeling and the photographic statement. Then, when I look at my self-portrait photos afterwards – I necessarily immerse myself into an internal dialogue about the conflict between the fact that I would like to see myself more handsome, and the value of the photograph to me as the artistry that it represents to me.

At the hairdresser. A self Portrait.

From all of this comes a statement that is perhaps a bit cynical about myself, which may result from a subjective constraint, or a lack of choice, which says: In the end, I prefer to see my self-photographs from an artistic point of view, and perhaps as representing my feelings at that moment, more than as photographs that represent my pretty face.

My Default Hairdresser. During the covid-19 time, having little choice because barbershops were closed, I learned to cut my own hair. I made this self-portrait to show that I was able to beat the virus and my fears of damaging my image. In retrospect, when I look at the photographs I have chosen for this post, it seems to me as though my haircut has become an issue for me. Is it because it is something I like more about my appearance?

This post is about good photography. In particular, it deals with portraits, or more specifically self-portraits, a topic I have presented with my own self-portraits. However, the questions I have asked here, using my self portraits, are exactly the questions we ask ourselves when we photograph our children, or other family members, or take professional photographs at a wedding, of others’ portraits, or of a newborn: Is a photograph that pleases the person being photographed considered a good photograph? And then what do we say when the subject of the photograph cannot express his or her opinion at all because it is a bird, or an insect, or a flower? Are photographs in which they are beautifully represented in our eyes good photographs, even if they are not photographs that have artistic value? 

Actually, why not? 

This is, of course, a rhetorical question. It has as many answers as the number of people that have tried to answer it, each has its own legitimacy. This is where I stop.

This post was first published on my Hebrew blog on April 3^rd, 2021.