“Many persons would like to know, Mr. White, what are the criteria used by
advanced workers like yourself in judging a photograph. Do you allow so
many points for composition, for technique, for originality of conception,
or for success in a difficult medium? Or do you say, ‘That picture
pleases me, and I vote for it,’ without attempting to state in
mathematical form the qualities of its success as a picture?”
“I would say that the first thing a man should do in judging pictures is
to answer the appeal of the picture. I think a picture should have a
message—that is, it should convey, not necessarily a story, but something
of the feeling of the man who produced it. This is really a difficult
question to answer. I would say, ‘That picture pleases me and I vote for
it.’ That is to say, so many points for technique and so many points for
pictorial quality would mean nothing to me. I would insist that a picture
have an appeal, and then that it have good construction, and it should
have quality. The printing medium, as I have said, doesn’t make the
picture, but the man who uses it.”