I went out for a day with a professional landscape photographer a couple of years ago. He referred to 'making' a photograph. I thought it was just him showing off as I was 'taking' photos. Recently I think that I began to understand the differentiation. Some days I still 'take' a photo, as in last week with my Grey Heron, when there isn't time to do anything other than point and shoot. Mostly now though I'm thinking about composition, lighting, viewpoint etc. and then there's whatever processing I feel is necessary. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm 'making' photos these days!
To me, the difference is in how you treat the subject. If you do nothing to "arrange" the objects you're shooting, you are "taking" the photo. Nothing wrong with that. I equate "making" a photo with composing the image outside the camera before shooting it. Arranging your subject.
@julieco I would say your interpretation is spot on, some photographers often have more planning to a shot. I imagine your pro landscape photographer pre plans many of his images from the comfort of his own home utilising the photographers ephemeris and google maps.
If you have time then try to "make" the photo but sometimes there is no time or you will lose the shot.
Try to think about balance and lighting in the shot - and avoid the telegraph pole growing out of someone's head!
I feel I "made" this photo, as I took 4 photos I had taken and merged them for this effect. No clip-arts or stolen shots, but this scene was "manufactured" so to speak.
I don't think either "take" or "make" does any justice. To take something, you have to claim it, and once its taken, no one else can take it unless you give it up. So I don't think anyone "takes" a photograph. You either "capture" a moment in time using a camera and either paper or some digital format so others can view that moment, or you "create" an image using the same tools (and quite often more tools). I know... this is picky semantics, but seriously, the phrase "take my picture" or "I'm taking a photograph/picture of this [fill in the blank]" comes off as sounding like absolutely no thought is going into it at all and no thought will go into it once it is printed and/or uploaded/imported. It takes zero passion, imho, to "take" a photo, which is why people will ask a perfect stranger while on vacation "would you take a picture of us?" The stranger doesn't have to care about anything at all to press the shutter release, and you can tell if the stranger you ask is a photographer, because a photographer won't just look thru the viewfinder and press the shutter release. A photographer will pay attention to the background, lighting, pose, etc and say things like "move a little more to your left" or "do you really want [random object] in the background?" and that doesn't mean he/she is creating an image by paying attention to those things, he/she may just be being selective about which moment to capture.
@julieco A guest speaker at my photography club discussed this in a way that really made me see the light. According to our speaker, who is a professional photographer, you take a snapshot but you make a photograph. Putting thought into controlling your frame, composition, exposure, focus are all part of making a photograph. Post processing the image to achieve the vision you had is another integral part of the process. So in the end, you are trying to make art, not taking snapshots that no one other than you would care to look at..
@andrewrome365@bobfoto@godders@jsw0109@soboy5
Thanks for your input. Some varied thoughts and I am still not sure where the dividing line falls. I occasionally 'take' a snapshot and then maybe do a bit of processing and can 'make' a good (not brilliant, but perhaps lucky) result. I certainly do put a lot more planning into my photography nowadays and would argue that even a static landscape can be manipulated in camera with thought given to POV, exposure, composition etc. So the making isn't all down to the processing stage.
@soboy5 that's actually what I almost typed when I threw in my 2 cents.... the whole you "take" a snapshot and "make" a photograph, but then I got to thinking of semantics and how we technically don't "take" anything at all.
@soboy5@julieco@jsw0109 - I get the impression from what I read here, that the elemental different between a snapshot and a photograph is time. I have posted it before, but I believe Photography is a Science and not an Art, and in my theory, Science can be broken down into facts, figures, and elements. In each shot we need X amount of light, we can factor in mechanical components like shutter speed and aperture, and at the end of the mix, if we get it right, we capture a moment in time. That's my science belief.
So it sounds to me that a snapshot, is taken with the minimal of fuss and is taken quickly (this theory gets blown out of the water by some of the street shots taken from the Hip on the 365) whereas a photograph is thought about, and there is almost a pause by the photographer, have I got this right, is the composition good, do I have my f-stop set?
Now here's my problem. Living in Papua New Guinea for three years where opportunistic crime is commonplace, nearly 90% of the time, I was accompanied on my journeys by a guide whose job it was to keep me (and often) my camera safe. So my guide would often give me 3 seconds (if I were lucky) to get my shot away, I was always hurried to keep moving. I found that I liked Aperture mode, f3.5, Auto ISO and Auto WB, and at the end of 3 years and 16,000 snapshots, I managed a few photographs amongst them.
I think JulieCo that you will understand these labels as they apply to the photographs in your collection. I look at my photographs and I call some of them "shots" some of them "images" some of them "photographs" but they were all created the same way initially.
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That's just my interpretation.
Try to think about balance and lighting in the shot - and avoid the telegraph pole growing out of someone's head!
Thanks for your input. Some varied thoughts and I am still not sure where the dividing line falls. I occasionally 'take' a snapshot and then maybe do a bit of processing and can 'make' a good (not brilliant, but perhaps lucky) result. I certainly do put a lot more planning into my photography nowadays and would argue that even a static landscape can be manipulated in camera with thought given to POV, exposure, composition etc. So the making isn't all down to the processing stage.
So it sounds to me that a snapshot, is taken with the minimal of fuss and is taken quickly (this theory gets blown out of the water by some of the street shots taken from the Hip on the 365) whereas a photograph is thought about, and there is almost a pause by the photographer, have I got this right, is the composition good, do I have my f-stop set?
Now here's my problem. Living in Papua New Guinea for three years where opportunistic crime is commonplace, nearly 90% of the time, I was accompanied on my journeys by a guide whose job it was to keep me (and often) my camera safe. So my guide would often give me 3 seconds (if I were lucky) to get my shot away, I was always hurried to keep moving. I found that I liked Aperture mode, f3.5, Auto ISO and Auto WB, and at the end of 3 years and 16,000 snapshots, I managed a few photographs amongst them.
I think JulieCo that you will understand these labels as they apply to the photographs in your collection. I look at my photographs and I call some of them "shots" some of them "images" some of them "photographs" but they were all created the same way initially.