What is the Criteria of Good Photography?

A mobile shot taken today of two friends Arvind Jodha and Anjali Shekhawat at Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur. Sometimes when you share this kind of photography and like it then many questions arise in your mind and the biggest question of them all is what is the criteria of good photography? 

I am doing Photography from last 20 years and still I learn new things every day. With every new situation you come up with new Idea and that gets converted in the new result. Initially when I started I studied that A Photo should be Sharp, With High Contrast, Colourful, Well Exposed, Well Composed and Have Some Creativity. Then came a time when things got more advance and I added few more points in my definition of “Criteria of Good Photography” Like Impact of Photograph,  Proper Use of Light, Story it’s Telling, It's Technical Quality and Proper Presentation of Photograph. All these points helped me a lot in my Journey of Photography and I will recommend all the new bees to memorize these points for output of a good Commercial Photograph.

With the Time I learned that there are Two kinds of Photography First Commercial and Second Personal. 

In Commercial Photography you have to keep all the above points in mind and Commercial Photograph is a Photograph which does not have any Emotional Involvement of Photographer in it. The sole purpose of Commercial Photograph is to get maximum viewership and appreciation. For example if a photographer is at a place of tragedy and he clicks a very Painful Picture of tragedy then don’t think that it’s not a Commercial Photograph. It is also a Commercial Photograph because Photographer didn’t had any Emotion Involve in the Photograph he is just trying to take most painful picture with all the Criteria of Good Photography so that he or she gets maximum viewership and appreciation. Some Photographers might say that no they are Emotionally Involved in those kind of Photographs but that will be a lie because just think if your loved one gets a bad cut in his hand what is going to be your first reaction to take his photograph or to help him? If you are Emotionally Involved in any situation then taking a Photograph with the Criteria of Good Photography becomes kind of impossible. If you are Emotionally Involved in a situation then you forget about all the Criteria of Good Photography, Viewership and Appreciation. This is the same reason that the best of the best surgeons don’t operate on their loved ones.

Second Kind of Photography is Personal in which Emotional involvement is so much that you forget about the “Criteria of Good Commercial Photography”, Viewership and Appreciation and that automatically becomes the “Criteria of Good Personal Photography”. According to me Personal Photography is the real Photography because it captures the emotion between Photographer and the situation or subject. Photographers don’t generally share those photographs but keep it safe cause viewing those photographs give them pleasure in whatever way. For example I had taken many Photographs of My Son, My Family and My Friends which I keep with me or sometimes share and I enjoy watching them. But that does not mean I had not taken their Commercial Photographs I had taken their Commercial Photographs also but at those times my Emotional involvement with the subject or situation was nil.

So according to me there are Two different types of “Criteria of Good Photography” First “Criteria of Good Commercial Photography” and Second “Criteria of Good Personal Photography” as mentioned above. Please feel free to post your comments below.