Do you ever make (or look at) photos you don't like?

Yes, on both counts. I've gotten a little beyond like/dislike after all this time. There are pictures of mine that fit that description. One entire series, in fact, but I know there's something there. I'm a lot more ill at ease with something that neither attracts nor repels me. Numb is not good in my book. Like looking at an iceberg, I always assume that I'm missing a lot of things. A majority. I believe the obvious is the last thing we see (due to desensitization). I want to understand much more than like or dislike.

It took me some time to appreciate George Tice, Len Henshel, and Ansel Adams, to name a few, but I kept going back to them repeatedly.

Fred, very interesting photograph -- rather nineteenth century from my perception . Can't say it's to my liking either, but as you mention there's something to be learned.
Nevertheless there are a number of photographs that almost make my skin crawl and yet for some perverse reason I look at them. They are on another level of consciousness or idea in which I can't relate. There are others such as the work of Weegee that utterly repel and yet fascinate me. "Their First Murder" is an example. Nothing in the image itself, but think of the timing of the photograph.
Sorry I digressed.
Luis, do you mean Len Jenshel? I love Tice and Adams, but I can agree they did not reach out like Bresson or Cunningham.

Almost everyone I make.

What I look for are ways to meke the next session even better.

Yes, Tom, I meant Len Jenshel.

Its an interesting set of questions you pose Fred. In a peculiar way I find myself beginning to dislike images I once felt were 'good'. What I mean is I may enjoy the process of producing/editing an image, look at it in its entirety and like it, only to find that the more I make reference to it the more I begin to dislike it. I may even go so far as to suggest, at times, there's a disdain towards some images and yet I continue to refer back to them. What draws me back? perhaps what the image represents or perhaps to learn what NOT to do (to learn from it). Perhaps my taste has changed/evolved and so the image doesn't fit the criteria of what, to me, is a 'good image'.
In reference to your image, I can see that it has the potential to be disliked the more its viewed but in viewing it for the very first time I see its composition as focusing/representing humanism and so I enjoy what it represents. Perhaps thats then a leading question into : at what point does an image lose its appeal if and when it does?

Big questions Fred.

Personally I have a great and almost physical dislike for esthetics in hardship. Beautiful photos of people suffering in our societies, or abroad, seem to be a main subject of many photographers.

Such photos and such photographers are sometimes major players in documentary works, which as such, I admire. They tell stories that complement what can be described and understood by oral and written works. When they become subjects of art and prices, I feel them deranging, misplaced and in many cases immoral. Good photos yes but admired as beautiful, esthetic and pieces to hang on a wall in the dining room or in museums, outside their intended context, alarm bells start ringing in my ear.

When it comes to my own photos, yes surely I have shots hat I keep coming back to and which deep inside myself, I don't like. Since some time I have been working on a greater series of composed, heavily photoshoped images in square format based on my photos the last years. Some of them are surely strange and disagreeable to watch, and yet I keep them and come back to them - like this.

There is a difference between photos I don't like and photos that aren't very good. Is a photo you don't like still without value to yourself or to others?

Fred, I don't really like the first example you shared with us, I find it disturbing on several levels, but is it a 'bad' photo? I can't really say that it is, in spite of the level of discomfort it generates in me, is shows an intelligent design and a purposeful intent. But I admit, the 'predatory' feel of the photo, creeps me out. Should you avoid showing it to others? Probably not, but please, wait till I'm out of the room!

I'm not at the level where my photography is good enough that I can 'hate' photo that still remains a 'good' photo. I have a certain level of doubt about all my photos, even the ones I secretly love.

In respect to my own photos I get completely confused most of the times. Broadly speaking, my appreciation of my own photos is related to my emotional bonds to it, or its subject.

When this emotional bond starts becoming prevalent, I start becoming "suspicious" about the photo. I may start disliking it as a means of visual communication, even if I still like the subject.

This specific case may have a good balance between my emotional bond and my photographic appreciation of the picture, so I still like it. In this other case the emotional bond is strong, the out-of-focus might be nice, but still I am very doubtful about what the photo might communicate independently from those two features.

This photo I like very much because I see the old Newyorker as an icon. And the photo is not as I wanted it. The tones are not good (bad film processing, probably) and I should have photographed a bit earlier, avoiding the girl covering the man. So I am prepared to like photos which have some technical or compositional faults, whether objective or not.

And technical perfection is not sufficient for me to like them.

In respect to photos from others, I have experienced that I do not like them but that they strike me because of their exceptionally strong visual message.

In that respect I try to separate my personal taste and liking from some sort of universal appreciation. So I can well appreciate a photo which is well ahead of my taste level, even if I would never even think of making a similar one.

Your example, which we already briefly talked about, is one of these cases.

Liking, or more in general, understanding and appreciating in my view must go beyond the strictly personal taste. Innovation in plastic arts requires looking ahead. For this purpose they need to be studied, to be looked at and viewed again and again, not to focus their each and every detail, but rather to anaesthetise taste and leave rational and emotional appreciation.

Yes. Being intrigued, but not actually liking it - I quite love it when that happens. The one thing is that I cannot say I continue to dislike it, as such things tend to grow on me.
Part of it is crossing a border into something new. Leaving the comfort zone of my 'aesthetical acceptance', outgrowing my own preferences. It has got to do with something outside taste, but it usually widens the taste to include it later. Upon analysis, it gives me more clues about what really moves me, where my interests are (or are going).Sensing a discomfort when looking at a photo, tingles me as well, as I cannot help but wonder why. While things I like, I just like - there is far less to take from that, in this sense.
What it would be outside taste - I think Luca mentions a vital thing: a strong visual message, and the ability to seperate the aesthetics from the message. Being moved, an emotional or intellectual appeal it makes.
Curiosity also plays a role. A need or desire to be challenged, a need for change or new ideas.

Ansel Adams, already brought up, is for me actually a nice case. At present, I would say those are photos I do not really like, but which I want to see to learn from. And the more I look at them, the less I like them. As images they just are cold to me, too static. But my, the tonality of those black and whites - that remains something to aspire to.
When I saw them the first time, I loved many of them, though.

None of this with my own images, though. There are plenty I dislike, plenty I am starting to dislike more and more, but I'm not proud of those.