Hello everybody. I hope you're having a great weekend, that everything is going well for you, and that you're enjoying your photography.

There are times when we look at a photograph and think, I just don't get it. What am I supposed to be seeing here? Clearly, if this is the mark of great photography, then I should be a genius — because my five-year-old does far better than this.

It's an idea that floats around photography. And last week, when we were talking about Annie Leibovitz, a reader called Stefan wrote to me about exactly this. I just wanted to share part of his letter.

That is, I think, a fairly reasonable question. So let's see if we can get to the bottom of it.

The Main Frame:

I think a bit of context would be handy here.

When I was a student, I had the same problem. I'd be sitting there, being exposed to photography I'd never seen before, and people would say, hey, this is a great photographer. And I'd be like, yeah, no, I don't see it. Have I missed a lesson?
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And it wasn't that I'd missed a lesson. It's just that I'd been taught to judge photography against a set of yardsticks. Is it in focus? Is the exposure correct? Is the composition pleasing? Now, those are all good questions, and they're where we should start when we look at a photograph. But somewhere along the way, we start to think they're the only way to judge one.
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So we look at somebody like Annie Leibovitz, and we go, OK, well, the lighting she's doing here isn't that difficult. Any student could replicate it. And in fact, we did replicate famous photographs when I was studying — it's an important part of the learning process.

But there's something that goes beyond lighting and posing, and I want to share a photograph with you to help illustrate that. This is a picture I took in 2014 of Karen, and it won the MPA Olympus Portrait Photographer of the Year award here in the UK.

The photograph isn't that special from a lighting perspective. From a styling point of view, the pose is straight out of a Sue Bryce handbook. And yet a panel of judges decided that, of all the portraits submitted for the award in the UK that year, this was the best.

So what made this picture a winner?
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Look at her face. Look at the attitude she gives you. Look at the feeling you get from her. That isn't something you can get from a book.
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And this isn't me stroking my own ego, saying hey, look how good I am. It's an illustration. There are moments that we, as photographers, learn to recognise. That shift, that subtle change — recognising it is what separates a photograph from being OK to being something with more soul. Something with a little stickiness that makes the picture linger with the viewer afterwards.

This goes far beyond portrait photography. It can be applied to any genre. The yardsticks we've been taught — the exposure, the composition, the focus point, all that kind of stuff — they're all important, because they lay the foundation for us to bring that piece of magic to the image.
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Now, I want to address Stefan directly here, but also everybody else. If you don't get these things, if you still look at photographs and say, well, I really don't get it — that is not a failing.

I like industrial music. My dad likes classical music. Two totally different genres. My dad thinks my industrial music is just noise, so he doesn't get it. But that doesn't mean he's deficient in some way. It just means it isn't necessarily for him.

We are not obliged to like every photograph ever made by every famous photographer. It is OK to say I don't get it, and that's just fine.

What I would suggest, though, is that for work that does connect with you, you go deeper. You ask, well, why does this connect with me? Why do I like this on a personal level — not just because somebody else has told me it's something I should see and should like?

The Curator's Gallery:

Yousef Karsh
​https://karsh.org/​
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Yousuf Karsh was a photographer who, I suppose one could say, falls into this category — a photographer whose work is technically proficient, but in a way that's easily emulated today. But he had a certain something. An ability to see a moment, and also to make one happen.
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There's a wonderful story about when he was photographing Winston Churchill in Ottawa. The photograph isn't anything we couldn't manage ourselves. But look at the expression on Churchill's face. Gruff, stern. It sums up the Prime Minister who stood firm against the odds on behalf of his country and said, "No further."
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And it all happens — not because Karsh said, "Can you think about the moment when Britain stood alone, and channel that into your expression". He did something else. Something unexpected. He just yanked Churchill's trademark cigar out of his mouth and said, no, we're going to take the picture without this.

You could also say that's possibly the face of a petulant child whose toy was taken away. But either way, that image is a great example of the certain something that happens in photographs that we can't quite put our finger on.

The Weekly Observation:

Take a moment this week to look at photography that you do like, that you do feel, that you somewhat understand — and ask yourself why.

What is it in those images that appeals? Is it the colour? Is it the composition? Is it something a little more intangible? Go a bit deeper.

It could be something you've never considered before. Do they remind you of your childhood? Do the scenes make you feel calm, happy? Perhaps they make you feel anxious, and that's what keeps pulling you back.

Go deeper. See what you can discover.

Inside the Tribe:

If you want tools to look at photographs and see what you like — and then maybe apply that to your own photography — come check us out in the TPE Tribe.

Every second Wednesday, we collectively review members' photographs and go deep into what's working in them and what isn't.
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And there are also bi-weekly presentations that look into the work of famous photographers, exploring what inspires them and what they use to help us find inspiration for our own photos.
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You can see two recent examples here:
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Talking about Saul Leiter
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Community Feedback

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👉 The benefits to your photography from being in the Tribe​
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Thank you for being here with me this week I really do appreciate it and if you've enjoyed this newsletter or the content that I make please reach out and say hi.
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Alex