What's wrong with this picture? (I)

Hello,
there is nothing wrong with this picture, but it does'nt make me say "wow" either. So I would say "not extraordinary enough".

I like it, but it's true, I don't see this as spectacular....Maybe it's the geometry, which is a little bit too complicated for a minimalistic picture: The tilted triangle with distortion? Maybe it would be "easier" for the viewer, if it were not tilted. The other ting is: Maybe the sign is too large. Maybe it would have been bette to shoot from a higher distance?

But anyway, I know this feeling and I have made the same experience like you. I don't see this as negative, these are pictures only for me. Maybe like a pet, which everybody says looks ugly, but that's why you may have special feelings for this animal.

It is almost guaranteed that my favorite photos of a set are hardly viewed or appreciated, so I understand......There can be nothing "wrong" with a photo..... but a photo may not succeed completely. I dislike criticism, but you specifically asked, so I would say that something in the composition doesnt quite work...... but exactly what, I couldnt say.

hi there, on the othr site i would say "this picture does not talk to me". It is technically perfect and should theoretically please me, because I do like minimal style - but it does not. I do not have an explanation. the missing "wow" is also my feeling. Especially for pictures from the minimal community I do rarely have an explanation why i like pictures or not, maybe we should ask someone experienced with Zen 8-). Maybe these pictures just make souls talk together without a deviation through the brain.
I have also made the same experience as you: some pictures I *really* like have very few views and favs.

First thanks for taking your time to give answers to my question!

Yes, maybe it's not a capture that let you say 'wow'. I can accept that. I think {me} could be right, that the sign is too dominant, more sky would be maybe better. That it is too complicated I don't think. It is rather minimalistic, I think.

At least it's good to see that others experienced the same phenomena. And even if in this case there couldn't be an obvious answer, I think I'll continue to ask for some critics about other unnoticed pictures. The response here is quite encouraging :)

Maybe you would like to compare your picture with mine. It didn't get any comments either. B.t.w., you should know that "begraafplaats" means "cemetery".

Even if a photograph is not liked by anyone else I would make it and publish it as long as I like it for myself. When in the end someone else likes it too, well then I am happy because I made a photograph someone else likes. But first and foremost I need to like it. There are many photos I do not make or delete afterwards because I do not like them. Probably others would have liked them? We will never know.

I noticed that a lot of the photos I like are not as popular with others and some photos that are popular with others I do like too but not as much. From what photos others like I can see what their taste is but it would not satisfy me to make photos for the taste of others.

Like it has been said here already, there is no "wrong" in photography. So in that sense to answer your question, there is nothing wrong with that photo at all.

It certainly would be a different story when making photos for a specific assignment. Here the assignment can be more or less precise in defining a framework what would be considered "good" in the sense of the assignment.

But apart from that, there is no "bad" or "wrong" in photography. What you want to achieve with a photograph is what counts, let it be expression, motive, light, colors, composition, technical aspects, etc.

Yes, that's totaly right. If you do not believe in your own work, others will not do it for you. So when I publish a picture, it's because I wanted to have it published cause I like it. Hunting to catch the taste of others will not satisfied you, to diverse is the community here, so you cannot please anybody.

But nevertheless I'm trying to understand what attracts people and what doesn't cause I want to learn. I'm less than an experienced amateur, I'm a beginner, who want to improve his work. And the best thing to improve your skills is the criticism of other people. And if 100 people are looking at picture A and only 1 at picture B, this is also I kind of criticism, I think, but very indeirect and difficult to understand. So by posting this picture here I hoped to get some more obvious reaction.

And I think the reaction was quite encouraging, so I'll try this again, in the hope to get more answers.

Don´t think about views. This is not good for your mental health.

Yes, but I'm not looking for views or missing them, I just want to understand what makes a picture attractive for others and which one not. And one measure for this are views, comments and favs. But not absolute one, relative. Why has this one less of them, while others, which are equal in quality for myself, get more...

nothing wrong with it at all. just something i usually do not stop to take a look at it, not even when I have to.. during traffic..lol

but it's well executed! no doubt!

Thanks for this :)

I agree with the previous comments.
In these sharing community, the "name" of the user is important: so there are bad pics with lots of views and awards (and, believe me, sometimes you can start a great friendship expressing a critic: great artists sometimes mix some bad shots to understand who really looks at the shot before commenting).
Another factor here is what is viewable in the thumbnail: a perfect shot may have an uninteresting thumbnail.
Talking about this shot: I looked at it passing through your stream, but never commented it. There is something wrong? I don't know. Perhaps in a so simple composition our brain has more difficulties accepting the disrupture of the rule of thirds. I'm sure a bird in the sky would have totally changed its aspect and generated the "wow factor". Colors are fine: too fine, perhaps? I don't know if you postprocessed it, but sometimes colours in digitals shots look artificial to our brain.
Me, I'm more of a beginner than you; I don't know why, but I noticed my bw shots are more appreciated than the colour ones: perhaps too much colour shots around? too much useless HDR? too much automatic use of PhotoShop/Gimp plugins?
I don't know. I know it's a little bit frustrating when no-one seems to note shots that make you say "wow!".
And on Ipernity there is another factor: if your blog is successfull and full of links to other users' streams, lots of people don't return back to look at your shots, LOL.

--
Seen in a user home page (?)

manganite, I totally understand your curiosity about why some picture attract the bravos and others are left alone in silence :-) Like you I also try to comprehend the why and why not. Some pictures of mine I don't particular like so much but others do, and opposite. In the first case I sometimes fail to see what is good in it, and in those lost to unpopular wall decoration I can't see why people don't like... ;-)

Sometimes I think it could have something to do with the subject matter? Like its easier to click on a flower picture and say "wow, beautiful!" then it is over a picture of a sign ("wow, that is a gorgeous sign!"). Other times it might be because a picture take times to interpret and understand - one of my favourite photographer here has not so many views but his photos are stunning but one must sometimes take some time to look at it in order to appreciate it fully.

Then again it could be difficult to know what to say about pictures sometimes. Myself I try to look more into books now, so that I better understand what to look for, how to read a picture better, so to speak.

As go for your picture I think its nothing wrong with it. I second Roberto Ballerini in that perhaps a bird or something would have added some more action in it, but actually I like it as it is in its simplicity.

Hmm. Interesting question. Do often ask myself why some pics (often those I don´t like that much) are more "prefered" than others, which are well executed, have an interesting light a balanced composition or/and nice colours/contrast. Not that I care really. I think often the "interestingness" is due the subject captured. But I am not really sure. Personally prference of some of your own pictures is based on the background while shooting - often you not only see the pic itself - you see the surrounding - the history iof it, which is not seen nor know by the outer viewers. I think it is called - Erlebnishintergrund.
Regarding the pic you have shown above: it is nice - well excecuted (Although I think there is too much contrast in the clouds) - but nothing "special" like commentatore mentioned already. Maybe the day shooting this was some special day - some day you remember in a really positive way?

"Personally prference of some of your own pictures is based on the background while shooting - often you not only see the pic itself - you see the surrounding - the history iof it, which is not seen nor know by the outer viewers. I think it is called - Erlebnishintergrund"

YES!!

I love the scratches on the signs and the really fuckin' blue sky. :o)))

But hey: How important is it to please the audience? Are you pleased by the shot? This is what counts for me. When others like it: perfect. If not: perfect.

i don't typically like to critique but you asked and there are lots of other comments so i'm going to go ahead. first, i'll say that i have the same experience as others, some that i just love go unnoticed.

what would i say about this particular photo that you posted.. there is nothing technically wrong with it at all. the colors are fantastic. i think it may make a good stock photo and might sell for an ad. if, perhaps, this went along with a few other photos in a series, that went along with the title "fifty meters to go..", that might make more of a statement and get more attention. or, if you could see a winding road to nowhere behind the sign... that might be more of an attention getter. a couple of things that make people come to a photo and really really love it is either a strong feeling being triggered or it being something they've never seen in such a way before. this particular photo does neither. we've all seen road signs and though i've never seen a metric road sign it still doesn't really do anything for me. what if i was seeing it through a rainy windshield? what if there was a giant buzzard sitting on the sign?

these are my thoughts. which don't mean much. if you like it then you like it and that's essentially what matters. i think most of what i do is mediocre but i hope like hell that other people think it's great or i wouldn't be here. a majority of us want all our photos to be loved because WE love them in some way or another.

I like this image a lot. The time when I log in and if I have time (or not) to look around plays a big factor in the images that I see. I am sure I miss a lot of great stuff on a regular basis. Maybe it was a busy night for all. :) Time often only allows for a quick browse through...

I can't say this is a favorite of mine either though. Yes I like it. But sometimes an image just hits you and you have to comment on it or favorite it, etc.....
Who knows why. We are all so different. Good thing though, eh?

Thanks for all your comments here! And sorry for answering not every single one, it's too much...

I think that shows, that I asked an interesting question many people have asked them selfs.That I couldn't get a single valid answer, I have not expected. It's to a huge amount a question of personal taste, and that differs very much. But nevertheless some points are very common in many answers. The picture is missing something eye catching. The choose of perspective, the vivid colors, the composition I have chosen seems not sufficient to attract people and motivate them to leave a comment. Something special, that makes it different from other pictures of this kind is missing.

But on the other hand I fear that would lead to a different picture, not the one I had intended to shot and post. My intention was as simple as the picture seems to be. I like such shoots and that's all...

Anyway, the result of this post encouraged me to do it again with another picture :)

Something about what Roberto mentioned:

Of course there are boundary conditions, which are more or less independent from the picture it self. I think everyone here knows people who will get huge amounts of any kind response if they only post a completely black or white picture, cause they have contacts who just likes the persons general output. That is nothing negative about the photographer it's a natural consequence of popularity.

The other thing he mentioned is also true, the thumbnail image must be somehow attractive to gather attention. And sometimes that's not possible and sometimes it's the other way round, the full image is bad while the thumbnail looks attractive...

And there are other points: Who's online if you're posting your pictures? If it is night in Japan, maybe my Japan pictures will gather less attraction... Who is posting after me in a certain group? Just someone who is dropping or running away, or someone who takes some time for looking through the pool giving comments?

And than popularity and success itself are making pictures attractive. Not only flickr's explore (or the frontpage here on ipernety, which seems to show some thumbnails of popular shots), just the bare number of views and comments written below will some people making looking more in detail. In only very rare cases I observed that if a picture which doesn't get attention on the first day is getting popular afterwards.

But that's the way it goes, and no one has an influence on :)

hey !
it's many more simple !!!
(sorry didn't read all answers, so maybe it's already in)
but i laugh a lot making it (sorry no photoshop)

Please just critic idea, not how i did it ...

maybe like this.... ;-)
ah ha ha ha ah
SHINE ON



Otherwise, don't see why ...
maybe just because "oh... another roadsign"....
but it's a good one so, even in this case...
well....

I don't agree with some comments here. First, I usually know why I like or dislike pics, and images in general, and when I don't know it I try to think about, and firmly believe that are artistics images made for: to think about. Second, I think that "bad" and "wrong" are good terms to judge, evaluate and talk about photographies (as paintings, books, buildings or people). Third, I don't like this one, and know clearly why: that triangle of vagueness on the right side seems dirty and noisy. I almost never suggest a crop, and will not do it here — but must confess since the first time I saw it I felt like cutting the right side.

I think the people don't mean the wrong and good are not suitable criteria, but only personal ones. What someone thinks is wrong, the next one like. So I think the absolutely use of the word wrong in the initial question was it what people makes disagree.

I myself like this picture as it is, and I think it is as good as some others in my stream. But despite of that, people seem to think differently about it. So I asked why.

Therefor am glad about your direct answer. Maybe a crop would do for some people, but for me it wouldn't be any longer the picture I intended it to be...

No, that's the point: good and wrong are not "only personal" values, nor absolutely rational or objective ones — they are social and cultural constructions, but always related with absolute values. Otherwise words like "classic" or "masterwork" would not have sense, and the crazyness about Explore would be pure crazyness — and it is not. We all believe in the possibility of a certain consensus about these matters. Most of all also believe that consensus is not possible nor desirable. And, on the other hand, aesthetic judgement is... well, that, judgement: it implyes freedom — but that freedom, as in the case of moral judgement, implyes limits, margins.

Yes, it's better not cropped — but I still don't like the right side.

What if the picture it was not intended to be is better? It happens all the time...

Yes, on average there could be an concensus to say this pictures is good, this ia bad or wrong. But nevertheless it's always a matter of personal taste. Noone can predict, which choice someone will take.

It's like a political election. Everyone is free to make his choice on his personal believes, but in the end some party will have the majority. There is no wrong or right behind any single decision.

I can't agree with that. Adolf Hitler reached power via elections, and that was a wrong decision. Freedom, if you want, is always freedom to make mistakes — but then mistakes are mistakes.

Now that's an extreme example (but what about G.W. Bush?— he was freely elected by American people). Not the case here, and of course most of time, if we are not confronting a classic masterpiece or an obvious piece of crap, taste is a personal matter... although taste, even in the case of food, is a cultural construction: we Mexicans naturally accept worms as delicatessen, our Japanese friends eat natto at breakfast, Germans think sauerkraut is a decent thing, not as a result of personal choices but of cultural heritage.

@Aurelio good or wrong can never be related to absolute values as you say, that is, understood as definite, because that would mean that people would have the same basic to make their judgement from. I don't think so. "A classic" mean nothing to a person who had not been told this is a classic, nor does "Explore" mean anything to a non-flickr...

That's right. Look at masterpieces of modern art. You will hardly find a majority of people in a country that will agree with that judgment as a masterpiece. If I'm on a matsuri, I like the music, cause it gives the special atmosphere, but I have a CD of it and I can't stand it for more than 5 minutes... I think a Japanese would like to hear it complete. There is hardly something like an absolute world wide valid taste.

Coming back to this picture. Obviously this picture doesn't find a majority of people who like it. So one can say it's wrong for them. And I was curious about what's there reason to learn something, maybe how can I in future make a picture, that is not wrong for me and not wrong for others, cause I want to enjoy me with my pictures, but also others. Other pictures are doing this, you can call them right, cause they make it for the people.

So the question is still there, what is it, making this one 'wrong' for some people and another one 'right'...

Let me insist, and note in the first place that you both are repeating what I said: that right and wrong are "social constructions". Everyone there in flickr (the "flickr society") and in this high tech hamlet is always using terms like "great composition" — and understanding that those are words of praise, id est that composition is a basic value (too basic and frquently meaningless, methinks). Of course "classic" does not mean nothing to people who does not know the concept, as japanese terms doesn't mean nothing to most foreigners, and Explore means nothing to... — so what? Explore means something to flickrities (that check it up on a daily basis, are worried and even make statistics about it). "Classic" means what humanity, along centuries, and not in a definite manner but aspiring to it, has defined as incarnating basic values. What is a classic and what is not changes with ages, but that does not mean the concept of classic has not sense — means it is, as I said, a social construction. The term "masterpieces of modern art" also means that: that there are some works socially defined as "masterpieces of modern art", even if most people don't even know about their existence, in the same way all educated people understand Dante is a classic, and Picasso a modern classic, even if they themselves have never took a look to their works.

And don't misunderstand me: when I say good and wrong "are related to absolute values" I mean precisely "related"; id est, personal judgement about that is relative, but not "absolutely relative", which is an absurd concept.

Now, back to the humble piece we were supposed to talk about — I would like to see it in huge size, as it seems a lot depends on the balance of light. As small as it is viewable now, we can't judge it properly.

Yes, communities with the same background may have the same measures, about what's god and what's bad. They god due to same cultural and social background, due to education and so on. So for them such expressions are meaningful and have an absolute value. So if a group of art experts defines a completely blue painted canvas as masterpiece of modern art, then I think that 99% of the normal people will it's crap every kindergarten child can do...

But normally they will not even think about this question. Defining standards of quality is done by experts and others are just adapting this or ignore it completely. So lot of people will say that Picasso is a master without ever having thought about it.

But flickr and ipernity members are not a homogeneous group of people. They are spread over all continents, cultures, social groups, ages and so on. So if you take a certain picture and ask for comments you will get different answers, positive or negative. But that's not what usually happens. Normally you will get only comments from people who like the picture. So in the end one will have pictures with response and with low response. So indeed there seems to be something like a general common measure for quality beside all individual differences. It's a statistical quantity which allows you to classify the quality of your pictures. So there is a let#s call it statistical wrong or right.

And I was looking for the origin of this for a certain picture. But that fails, cause I got no statistical result, I got individual results, and I got different answers from different people. So beside the statistical wrong, there are many individual wrongs. So in principle I would need hundreds of answers to filter out the statistical reason. I will not get it, but I can continue with it on other pics, so I will get a better statistics on the long term. Maybe that will help...

What usually happens is that your friends give you a fave or a wow! even if they don't like the picture; people that are running from one pool to another and need to comment and award do the same; others can't help to fave a Japanese red parasol; others want you to fave them... etc. How will you discern the sincere reactions? How do you know when someone took his time to see, think about, evaluate, before commenting?

You need a grant from some japanese foundation to make the statistics... Ask Ojisanjake, who does not know what to do with his billions of yens.

Right, a lot of comments, favs, views originate in what you're describing. But I have not 10000 friends on flickr. So there must be something that let get one picture 20000 views and 600 favs in a year, and another one some hundreds and no favs at all...

Statistics is a question of large numbers. Ask 1000 people and you can predict an election. So everyday I got 1000 visitors on my stream. I think that's a good basis for some statistics.


I treated my pictures all in almost the same way, put it in the same groups, post them almost always at the same time. But still they behave significantly different.

My job is doing experiments and so I do on flickr. Once I spread my top 20 interesting pictures over several comments groups at the same time. As a result they got all together some hundreds comments and dozens of favs. I did one week later with the next twenty. The response was significantly lower. Then I did the same with pictures having received only a few views and comments and almost no favs. And the result? Most of them got almost no resonance, at most maybe 2 or 3 comments.

The same was for the temporary gallery exhibition. It was mix of high and low response pictures and the outcome of the exhibition was equal to this distribution. The pictures popular before got more comments/favs than the one unpopular before.

So it seems I have a broad distribution of quality in my stream measured by the size of response. And friends and comment group doesn't kill the statistics, cause I treated everything equal.

And it's the same here. Even though the distribution of people here is different, it's a small subgroup of the contacts or visitors I have on flickr, the resonance on the pictures is almost equal.

With one exception. It seems that pictures which are not cultural free, but representative for japanese culture do not as good as on flickr. That's maybe given by the distribution of people. On flickr lots of my contacts and lots of the other people there are related somehow to Japan, so the interest in such pictures is naturally higher than here, where they are only a curiosity.

So even with much smaller numbers, no groups, no explore here on ipernity, statistics seem to work.

But nevertheless, I wouldn't say no if I got some billions of Yen from Ojisanjake ;)

Yes, I have made the same experiments, with similar results. Now you touch an interesting point concerning cultural limits. Have you noticed the incredible low number of Japanese photographers appearing in the Explore pages? It's easier to find Westerers' photos of Japan there than local production, even when the number of Japanese photographer (and very good ones) is enormous...

More later on this — go to Tokyo for two days.

Yes I have noticed, both, the high quality and the low number. And 'japan' is beside 'party', 'wedding', 'family', 'friends' and 'travel' the big number in the tag list. my kast checked gives something like 3 million pictures. So it is a hot topic!

But concerning cultural limits. In real life, being in Japan and noticed two things: Japanese love photography and japanese feel uncomfortable to interact with gaijins. Yes, you can make deep friendship with them, but it's a hard job. My girlfriend was teacher in a primary school, and not even the japanese English teacher could speak english well. The same at my job, to smalltalk with my colleges was everything else than easy. It's still a closed society, and I think it is here, too. The Japanese here, having their streams in English, you can find in explore, take tamjpn for instance and others. But there are others whose streams are just all Japanese and that kills communication. On the other hand for foreigners Japan is a very attractive photo country, lots of Americans are there, so they dominate community.

I'm not sure if this is the explanation, but maybe it is.

I think there's more. Of course the first reason is they are not using English, so the flickr Explore searchers can't process their tags and information. Bad point to Explore, not to them: I have been studying Japanese for years and am convinced the distance between it and Western languages is so big one can not expect them to feel comfortable with it. Besides, the Japanese flickr community is so huge they don't feel the necessity of interacting with the rest. But what I wanted to point at is cultural limits in other sense. I think their idea of composition, for example, is radically different to ours — as it is noticeable not only in photos but also in paintings and movies, and as some studies about visual perception show — western eyes locate immediately a focal center in any image they confront, while chinese and japanese (and I suppose other oriental people) not: they move incesantly through the entire surface the image is.

That's maybe a point. So western people may feel uncomfortable with Japanese pictures. But that shows again for me, there are two wrongs and rights, one rather personal defined by social and cultural background, and one else, which is difficult to describe sometimes, but let something fail for all (statically) beyond the limits of culture....

maybe.