What do you think makes good photography?

Personally I think if the image captures a certain precious moment in time and provokes emotion in the viewer.

A great composition creates a great photograph.

I was talking to a photographer cause i am getting into photography too and she said never have your main focus in the center. try to put it to the side.. or a little off center. i personally think that if you have to do photoshop on them then it probably isnt very good. =]

pose

I think an honesty and unique look at the subject make a good photo. Getting down on the ground, doing something unusual and outside the square to get that shot works well. But photo-shopping does not make a photo good - it takes away the honesty of the shot and just looks contrived. I have a friend who is claiming that he is a professional photographer but everything is photo-shopped, under or over exposed or generally manipulated in some way that takes away the real essence of what might otherwise have been a decent photo. I've been working on a series of photos taken in local forest - capturing unusual shapes - and have ended up with amazing shots of ordinary objects that look like animals. I have a terrific shot of a twisted tree stump that looks like a lion hiding behind ferns, another tree that could be a rhino, a giant serpent hiding in a tree or (my favourite) a fallen tree fern that looks like a large, green mossy dog sleeping. Not one of these shots is edited or photo-shopped in anyway. They are honest shots using only my skill as a photographer. No tricks, no fancy lenses and no touching up the image.

How clear the photos is, the scenery, and the way the people are positioned. They may have props like stools, benches, etc. Depends what kind of pictures, family, sisters, brothers, single, and so on.

Random and untouched pictures are usually the best, photographers that pick a theme and go to all sorts of places get some really good random pictures that are natural because everyone else around is unaware.

the photographer has to capture a "mood" and make the viewer say oh! ya i see what they mean.

I've been a professional for thirty years, and I have a few answers. 1) Professional Photographers of America (PPA) have a list of the twelve elements of a successful print http://ppgba.org/html/12_elements.html by Tim Mathiesen. 2) Vogue, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, are examples of magazines that have high standards for photography. People and Parade magazines have very low quality photography. You are correct that one barrier to great photography is lack of originality, especially when the technical and artistic merits of the images are low. If the image has a lot of impact, composition that works, and is technically well done, then originality is not as important. But, if the photograph is of something we see everyday, or as common as a beach, then originality is likely to be very important. I have been judging photos on a local level for a few years, and I have learned how to gauge my reaction to a photo and put my thoughts and feelings into words. So, if you posted links, I could comment Finally, the marketplace decides what is good photography. Some people appreciate manipulated photos, others appreciate images which rely on classic photographic aesthetics. Eliot