I didn’t take a lot of pictures riding the CTA to the Art Institute two days ago, but my eye seems to have been sharp that day, a lucky day I guess, because I deleted very few of them. I know, our topic in this blog is supposed to be drawing, but drawing is about seeing and seeing can be practiced all the time, in fact, I recommend it highly. There are two stages in seeing: one, the live action scene in which you isolate something from all the hustle-bustle of every day life and two, the review at the end of the day, when you look at all the shots or drawings and you select the ones that are worth looking at. Now, what does 
that mean, “worth looking at?” We usually just say, “this is good, this is a good image.” So, when is an image good? That’s the same, I think, as asking, Does this image engage my attention? Does it start a chain reaction in my brain? And does that chain reaction lead me to some depth? Not a momentary amusement, not some information or knowledge, but something…call it, something experiential that rings true. I’m volunteering this answer (in the form of more questions, notice) just to get the ball rolling on this topic. What I would really like is everybody weighing in with your own opinions. So, to make this comfortable, let’s get away from theorizing, let’s look at some of the pictures I took on Friday. At the top, right, we have a picture taken on the El going down town. Why is this a good photo? Does it tell a story? Or doesn’t it? Do you need a story in a picture? Next, in the middle, a picture snapped in that wonderful light well that holds American sculptures in the South wing of the Art Institute. Same questions here: story or no, is this a good photo? Last, one more photo from that 
sculpture atrium. Story or no, and is this a good photo? My vote is yes to all being a good photo, you guessed that already. I should have saved the ones that were slightly off—for the sake of learning. It’s valuable to look at bad stuff and try to get at what makes it bad. (Next time. I blog, therefore I learn.)
Your comments, please!
To me, the bigger question would be: did these people know you were photographing them? I suppose it’s because I hate being photographed, but I get queasy about the idea of photographing people without their knowledge, let alone without their consent. I think it has something to do with the proliferation of cell-phone cameras, the ease of using them to capture ‘found’ situations, and the distancing between subject and object which seems to accompany this urge to photograph.
A quintessential example of this, to me, was around Christmastime, when someone attempted to attack the Pope as he processed into a service. As I watched the tape, a large number of hands immediately went up, not to help or intervene, not to express outrage, but, cell phone in hand, to ‘capture’ the event. Clearly, even the videographer was doing the same (unless he was a news photographer being paid to cover the service, typical at holiday time). Possibly, some of the attendees may have photographed the event to make public an event they found outrageous. But how many were just thinking about their YouTube moment?
On the other hand, this kind of photography does close the mental distance of ‘seraching’ and ‘finding’ (discussed elsewhere in this blog), but I’m not sure this is a good thing.
As to your question: Is it good? The images have good formal compostional qualities, and I love to draw ‘back’ views. However, photos like this don’t do much for me. On the other hand, a drawing/painting of the same composition would be a totally different story–thinking obviously about Edward Hopper. I suppose that one might make such a photograph to use as inspiration for a drawing/painting, but I’m not sure that was your point in this posting.
This issue of privacy in photography is so interesting that it deserves a whole blog post.
Great blog posting Katherine! I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, and sympathize with Maggie’s….I think they are all good photos which are very interesting spatially and compositionally…..the two lower ones have great foreground, middle and background exploration while the upper one has a compressed middle ground that is unusual with the girl’s body being closer to us than the man, but requiring us to look more closely to really see what the spatial relationship is about….l would prefer the camera “pulled back a touch” to avoid some of the tangents around the edges, but i still like the idea, shapes, subtle movement, etc….
This issue became of utmost concern for me as I was doing my series on the homeless back in the late 90’s….if i had asked permission on some of the images, they would literally no longer have been able to be “captured”, however, there were quite a few times that I did ask permission, or actually created posed scenarios, using myself and my family members, or i made up scenes from pieces of photos….creating a narrative scene that did not actually occur, except in my conception….will now comment on your excellent blog from today, august 6th, about this very notion of posing or staging a situation versus capturing a spontaneous moment…..
“Good”, according to what? What standard or idea to measure against to derive a “bad, fair, good, better and best” judgement? Good in terms of design, eliciting an emotion, communicating an intellectual idea, simply as a catalyst for imagining? Most of what people interpret as good is wholly subjective; or are we looking for something more visceral and objective such as Clive Bells significant form? I like how David Leffel puts it, “one does not ‘judge’ good, one understands it.”
I’m partial to the middle one; I like the composition.