I was raised to be a pretty conscientious consumer.  Before I make a major purchase, I deliberately consider the pros and the cons of each option.  I try to prioritize the factors and consider the most important ones with added weight when comparing my choices.  When I do that, it usually becomes clear to me what I want, and the decision of what to buy is easy.  For most of my life, I couldn't understand why people make stupid choices with their money.  It’s obvious to me that my way is the right way.

What I only started to appreciate a few years ago is that not everybody has the same objectives as I do.  They make decisions based on what they think is important.  Therefore, for them, a totally different decision is the best – even though to me it looks stupid.  Okay, so I still think that my objectives, and therefore my decisions, are the smartest, but I can finally understand that most people don’t think the way I do.

It’s the same with most decisions we make.  To know what the best option is, you first have to know what your objectives are.  Judging photography is no different.  To know what a good photograph is, or more difficult, to be able to make a good photograph, you first have to have some criteria or goals in mind.

When most pictures are taken, the only conscious goal is to record an event, a place, or a person for future remembrance.  In that case, you usually have an easy task in front of you.  Just point and shoot, and the camera will usually do a fair job with the technicalities.  For the people who took the pictures, and perhaps for a few other people that are close to the circumstances, the pictures will more than adequately meet the goal.  When they look at them, the photos will remind them of and arouse all the emotions that were tied to that event.  So, I can say that most people, by their own criteria, take great pictures.

People that take pictures for others to view have a bit of a harder job in front of them.  For outsiders that have no emotional tie to the situation, the photo has to be something more than a simple record.  It usually has to be made is such a way to elicit an emotional response from people that otherwise would have none.

Photojournalists usually attempt to capture the essence and emotion of a socially important event.  They try to record the critical moment that is the culmination of or defines the occasion.  They try to present it in a way that helps people to understand the motives, the emotion, and the consequences of what is happening.

Nature photographers typically try to communicate the nobility and importance of the natural world.  They are often trying to draw sympathy and support for conservationist causes.

I think I’m a travel photographer.  As such, my goal is to make the places I visit look interesting or inviting.  I try to make Paris look romantic.  I try to make Zion look rugged and pristine.  I want to make the ocean look volatile and overwhelming.  If, after you look at one of my pictures, you want to go visit that place, then I have accomplished my goal and I know I have taken a good picture.

The one element that, in my opinion, is common to all good photographs, and that I have already mentioned, is that they all communicate emotion.  Family snaps do that just by virtue of the fact that the viewers already had those emotions and simply need to remember them.  Good journalistic photos often do it by showing the height of emotion in others.  Landscape photographers have to attempt to make an emotional tie between the view and the land.  Whatever the circumstances, a good photograph should always draw emotion out of the viewer.

Recognizing the need for an emotional response and then identifying any further objectives are critical to becoming a good photographer.  Once you have goals, you can start to translate them into something tangible.  Doing that is still not easy, but at least you can compare your results to your goals and judge if you’ve done a good job or not.