What Makes a Great Photograph?

Here’s an excerpt from a book I’m reading right now on photography: The Visual Toolbox – 60 Lessons for Stronger Photographs by David Duchemin.

“A couple of years ago I tried to answer, for myself, this simple question: What makes a great photograph? My own reply was contained in three elements-lines, light, and moments. What we do with those three is everything in a photograph. If every student of photography learned to ask three general questions before they pressed the shutter button, their work would improve faster than any new piece of gear could ever do in a lifetime. Those three questions for me are: What is the light doing? What are my lines doing? Is this moment the most powerful?”

Photo by Steve McCurry via Magnum.
INDIA. Bombay. 1993. A mother and child ask for alms through a taxi window during the monsoon.