Hi, everyone
I just found this forum, and my first reaction is, it's going to take a long time just READING before I can possibly learn and see everything here
But, then I saw this and starting thinking of answers in my head (complete with echo)
For me, it's when I take a picture, someone sees it and it means something to them. They say (or email me about it) "wow, I really love that, it reminds me of... I felt.... etc"
I don't know if that makes it GREAT like contest winning, and it's different ones for different people. Sometimes a plain picture, sometimes one of my experiments (one a blue background, white moon, birds in a tree, I put "weave" on and someone saw it online, wanted to buy it to hang in her chiropratic office. Since I don't print them (for sale) I didn't know what to say, so sent her the file, she had printed and framed, and she sent me $50. She said she just loved it, something about it made her feel peaceful)
Anyway, my favorite story like this, I was showing pictures to someone (family friend) who was fascinated by one I had taken (actually I had been testing my daughter's Sony Mavica camera, she thought wasn't working right, I got some new cds for it and was trying it out and taking random shots) It was a picture of a little tree, with mist in back, a brook and snow on the ground. The woman said she had been struggling for years with depression, and psychiatrists, etc had asked her to discribe it and she never could. She said THIS picture discribes it! I printed it out for her (several sizes) she brought it to her dr at the time (supposedly the dr in Boston MA has it framed on her bookcase) the depressed woman hung it on her wall, and slowly started to feel better. She felt understood, though alone, like the little tree in the fog and snow.
The funny part was, the little tree had several other trees behind it (without leaves because it was the end of winter) that didn't show in the picture. So, the tree wasn't really alone, it just looked like it. I took several shots of it, some landscape format.
So, I think the answer to the question is, if the picture means something to someone, in some/any way. If they are effected or moved by it, how they feel, even for the time it takes to look at it. That's what makes it GREAT.
And, when someone else feels something about one of my pictures, I do, too.
I now have to figure out how to post pictures here...