The wow factor

Submitted by Evelyn C. McDonald
October 28, 2015 12:44 p.m.

I often attend the Island Art Association photography group meetings. One month we were divided into teams of 2 to 3 and told to evaluate 30 photos on 4 criteria – technical difficulty, composition, subject, and visual impact. At the end of the exercise, each team was to appoint a captain who would identify which photo received the highest number of points in our group and discuss what we learned from the experience.

A side note on the team captain business – that role always seems to fall to me. Whether I’m active in the discussion or quiet, when it comes to naming a spokesperson, my team looks in my direction and says (unanimously, I might add), “You do it.” Makes me think of the old commercial for Life cereal where the older kids push the new cereal off on their younger brother saying, “Let’s let Mikey try it.”

Anyway, I duly reported our choice for best photo. But our team had all noticed something else. The visual impact of some photos was immediate. We’d look at a photo and say “wow” in unison. Let me say that the photographers in the IAA group are pretty good at their craft so there were a lot of terrific photos but not that many “wows”.

It got me thinking about what makes a “wow”, what does visual impact mean anyway? The answer seems to be similar to the judge’s comment when they asked him to define pornography. He said, “I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.” Wow factor hits the same way. It does reflect personal preferences but often transcends them.

Part of the wow factor is that the photo, painting, etc. has something unique about it that goes beyond its subject. For example in the Renaissance, painters did a lot of commission work involving portraits. In the hundreds of examples of portraiture, it can be hard to find the wow.

When I was living in Washington, DC, the French sent the Mona Lisa on tour. I went down to see her at the National Gallery of Art. The painting was installed on a large wall and we were allowed to slowly file past it. It’s hard to describe the effect but I knew it was a “wow.” The muted colors, the famous smile, the patina of age that lent a silky look to the painting – everything about her was at once alike and different from any portrait I had ever seen.

Go to one of our art galleries and see if you can’t find a wow or two in them.

Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ’s Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.