Every twelve seconds a DSLR camera is purchased in North America, and the buyer’s head is filled with dreams of creating magnificent photographs, capturing the decisive moments of life, selling these photographs, and winning prestigious photography competitions.

Unfortunately, for most buyers, these dreams remain just that: dreams.  Crack open the 200+ page manual and you quickly learn that it says nothing about how to make great photographs but only how to change a setting to take an accurate picture.  What is the difference between making a great photograph and simply taking a good picture?

We have developed a holistic view of learning photography that focuses on the attributes of a great photograph across all three phases of the photographic process: the scene, the shot, the shop. Read our introductory lesson to learn more, or use the table of contents below to go directly to a lesson in one of these categories. New lessons are added each week.

Also, enhance this knowledge by visiting our contest tips section, reading our no-holds-barred photo critics in the Photo Gauntlet and submitting photos or questions to our professional Council of Photographers.

Let’s look at these two pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. One is a great photograph and the other is simply a picture—an average one at that.

Undoubtedly, you instinctively recognized the left one as the great photograph. Why? What makes that photograph great? How can we move beyond appreciating great photographs while taking only average pictures? How can we make great photographs ourselves?

What Makes a Great Photo?

There are five attributes that separate the great from the ordinary.

• Story Telling is where a photograph, absent any captions, is able to describe an actual story or elicit the viewer into creating a story about the photo through the viewer's imagination. If a photo was graded on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is completely devoid of intellectual interest and/or has multiple, confusing messages while 10 is a harmony of photographic influences and techniques that work together to deliver an immersive experience for the viewer.
• Emotional Impact within a photograph is the ability to move the viewer at the deepest levels. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is total apathy by the viewer for the main subject of the photograph while 10 is an emotional response that is strong enough to trigger a physical reaction, such as a tear, laugh, cringe, etc.
• Originality is the photograph’s ability to show mundane or familiar things in life in a new and innovative manner. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is a snapshot taking that is missing the basic elements to generate newness or interest, i.e. same-old same-old, while 10 is a photograph that brings a new perspective to a situation, place, person, etc.
• Technical Excellence is where the photograph was taken with complete perfection from a standpoint of technical elements, such as composition, color, exposure, focus, etc. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is a picture that has serious technical flaws that ruin image, while 10 is a photograph that brings together all the technical aspects of the photo to support the story and emotions of the photograph.
• Visual Balance is where the overall impact of the photograph matches the subject and “makes sense”. It is where breaking the conventional photography rules leads to a better photograph. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 is a picture that is “just off and doesn’t look right”, while 10 is a photograph that stops time and bottles it into a photograph that transports the viewer to the actual location.

Looking again at our two Golden Gate Bridge pictures, we can now see more clearly why the left is truly a photograph and the right is not. The left photograph is vastly superior on all five attributes while the right photograph has obvious flaws and no real story or emotional appeal.

The Photographic Process: Scene, Shot, Shop

Making great photographs is truly a three step process that we call “The Scene, The Shot and The Shop: A Holistic View to Making Photographs”. To become a great photographer, one must learn to understand not only each step in the process, but also the interaction of the decisions between each step. For example, decisions made at The Scene will affect the plans on processing of the photograph at The Shop. Likewise, plans on processing of the photograph in The Shop will affect decisions made at The Scene.