What Are The Qualities Of A Good Photo?


Hi, everybody. Welcome to Episode 18 of the photography explained podcast. In this episode, what are the qualities of a good photo?

I’m your host, Rick, and each week I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details. My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help us with our photography and no more.

Okay, let’s get straight into this one.

So what are the qualities of a good photo? I’m going to give you a list – this is my answer.

A good photo has some all of the following qualities

  • Is interesting
  • Captures a moment
  • Makes the viewer want to know more
  • Tells a story
  • Is well composed
  • Has depth and is balanced
  • Has no distractions
  • Has good light
  • Is technically correct
  • Has correct exposure
  • Has accurate colours
  • Has correct focus
  • Has correct depth of field
  • Is subtly processed
  • And finally, and most importantly, my book looks natural.

Okay, if you do a Google search for this query, what are the qualities of a good photo, you’ll get a huge variety of answers. This is my answer. This is my list. Let’s have a quick look in a little bit more detail. Obviously not too much detail because as I hope you know by now, it’s not my strong suit.

You can listen to the episode here

Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!

1 – Is interesting.

Sounds obvious, but a good photo needs to be an interesting photo.

There’s something in the photo that is of interest to somebody who is looking at the photo.

I mentioned in a previous episode that no amount of effort or emotional attachment in a photograph will influence somebody who doesn’t know you or know anything about the photo, as all they have got to look at is the photo.

So a good photo needs to be interesting

2 – Captures a moment.

Now this is not something that I am that big on because of the work I do. No – I’ll backtrack on that. For my architectural and construction photography I’m not really capturing moments, I’m capturing buildings.

But I’m a travel and landscape photographer as well. I do catch a moment. It’s called sunrise, sunset, and a few bits in-between.

But this also refers to any interactions between people. Rather than having people just staring at the camera, capturing a moment between two people is a much more interesting thing.

3 – Makes the viewer want to know more.

The idea is that when somebody looks at your photo, they look at it and the first time they go yeah, that’s nice. But they stay there, they stay looking at it because there are things in there that they want to explore.

If they just look at a photo, and then move on to the next one that is not good. Or as in the modern digital world, swipe up or down depending on which social media hellhole we’re talking about.

That’s what happens. So make people want to know more, make them want to look at your photos and study them.

4 – Tells a story.

What does that mean? Tell a story?

Well, again, an interesting photo, it tells you something. Looking at say, okay, it’s a tree, you know, telling a story of a tree, you need to look a little bit deeper than that.

I’ve got to be honest with you, when I’m taking photographs, I’m not thinking of telling the story as such, because I’m not very artistic, which isn’t great for a photographer. But now I do try and tell the story, the story of a moment of building an achievement a construction project, I’ll backtrack on that one as well.

I was trying to stop myself from starting to sound too arty then, which if you met me wouldn’t be surprised to hear!

5 – Is well composed.

Now if you’ve been listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast recently, you will have heard a number of episodes all about composition. So I won’t go into that any more here other than the bullet points I mentioned.

6 – Depth and balance

A good photo has depth and balance. You can create depth in a 2D photo by giving a sense of depth, scale, and balance between the elements, complimenting each other.

7 – Have no distractions

Squirrel. (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one).

Yeah, distractions, things that don’t need to be in the photo. And I’m not just talking about removing everything in Photoshop. But when you take the photo, just include the things that you need to include to tell that story.

8 – Has good light.

Photography is drawing with light. So good light helps make a good photo.

I said this before about my architectural photography work and my construction photography work. I don’t have a choice of light, I just work with the light that is there. But you still get light in different directions at different times of the day, there are still things you can do, you just need to think about it.

9 – Is technically correct.

We don’t expect photos to be technically incorrect, we expect them to have the correct exposure, accurate colours, in focus, and correct depth of field (as in a lot or not a lot depending on how you want to compose a picture).

I’m gonna have to go and of course on editing audio because my lack of the ability to speak English is quite alarming. Especially considering I’m English.

10 – Is subtly processed.

Now I want to say something about this. A lot of the others have been bullet points. But this isn’t. This isn’t something I’ve touched on really in my podcast so far.

And it’s something that I am going to get on to, there is a logic to how I construct this, you know, it’s not just thrown together, even though it might seem like it. So subtle processing.

If someone looks at a photo that you created and thinks “Hey what a great job you did in Photoshop”, then in my humble opinion, you have failed. People should look at your photo and think, yeah, it’s nice.

Image processing isn’t something that should stand out, the photo should stand out, the processing should bring out the best of a photo, enhance the good bits, hide the not-so-good bits, make the subject matter the centre of the photo, make it the thing that you look at.

I have a real bee in my bonnet about this. I’m not very good with Photoshop, because I don’t understand it. What do I do in Photoshop? I remove things. That’s all I do. I don’t do anything else.

I do 99% of my processing in Lightroom.

And probably 90% of the processing in Lightroom is done in the basic panel.

Probably 75% actually, I’ll come on to this another episode. I don’t want to say too much now. But I use Lightroom to enhance what is there. I want my photographs to look natural and also consistent from one set to another.

You don’t want somebody looking at a photo and going wow, Photoshop-tastic. Oh no, I just want people to look at photos, which should be presented the best you can using the processing tools available.

You can do pretty much anything you want to a photo these days. And I find that the more I learn Lightroom (which I’ve been using since version 1.0), the more I know, the less I do, which saves me time.

All done

Okay then, that is Episode 18 as my cold comes back with a vengeance, hopefully this hasn’t this affected your listening pleasure.

Thank you very much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave a nice review and rating wherever you get your podcast from and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Tell somebody about my podcast and I will be so grateful.

What’s next? In Photography Explained Podcast episode 19 – The Number 1 Way To Improve Your Photography.

Check out my website, rickmcevoyphotography.com to find out more about me.

If you want me to explain something, let me know. Head over to my website, check out my list of episodes, get in touch and tell me and I will give you a name check when I do it.

This episode has been brought to you by the power of having a cold. I’ve been Rick McEvoy.

Thanks again for listening and giving me 10 minutes of your valuable time. And I will see you in the next episode.

Cheers from me Rick

OK – that was the podcast episode.

Want to know more?

Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.

And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.

Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.

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And finally a little bit about me

Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.

Thank you

Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).

Cheers from me Rick

Rick McEvoy Photography

Rick McEvoy

I am the creator of the Photography Explained podcast. I am a photographer, podcaster and blogger. I am professionally qualified in both photography and construction. I have over 30 years of photography expereience and specialise in architectural photography and construction photography.

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