[GeneV]

I've joked on vacation that the camera has on occasion turned into the Instrument of Documentation. FWIW, my definition of a "snapshot" is a photo just designed to document, with little thought to doing so in an artistic or generally interesting manner.

[gokenin]

This thread is useless the people that think that any photo taken is a worth something will always disagree with those that think that it a photo should only be called a photograph if it is thought out and planned and has legitimate artistic values is too great to overcome. Photography should only be thought of as artistic expressions everything else is just junk and shouldn't be given any thought by serious photographers. As a side note if the picture of a kid with cake on his face is of someone that becomes famous then that worthless snapshot all of a sudden will become something important because it shows the said famous persons childhood, ahh well thats besides the point. see you all later.

[johnmflores]

This thread is useless the people that think that any photo taken is a worth something will always disagree with those that think that it a photo should only be called a photograph if it is thought out and planned and has legitimate artistic values is too great to overcome. Photography should only be thought of as artistic expressions everything else is just junk and shouldn't be given any thought by serious photographers. As a side note if the picture of a kid with cake on his face is of someone that becomes famous then that worthless snapshot all of a sudden will become something important because it shows the said famous persons childhood, ahh well thats besides the point. see you all later.

I disagree. Some of those photos in the link I provided are great. The intent doesn't matter - the final result does.

Are those snapshots great photographs? Yes.

Does it make the person taking it a great photographer? Not necessarily, they may have gotten lucky.

That's my point of the "million monkees" thing, to distinguish great photography from great photographers. This is the challenge for the great photographers of our age, as the million monkees (myself included) are posting on Flickr and everywhere else. That makes it especially hard - even for a great photographer - to stand out.

[TaoMaas]

Snapshot as a term generally refers to a picture taken with little thought other than to capture a moment in time for a small interest group such as family or a small group of friends.
The term relates more to intent than quality.
Snapshot = pictures of your child's first birthday. No one cares outside of your immediate circle of family/friends.

I agree with your definition, but disagree with your example...sort of. I believe it's possible to elevate family pics above the level of simple snapshots. But, as you say, it goes back to intent.

[alohadave]

I often wonder at the "trash talking" that snapshot photography gets. In my mind, snapshots are akin to journalistic photography in that they capture a moment without artificial staging.

Here is a link to an interesting short story on snapshot photography"

Snapshots Are Good Photographs

Ah, the two paragraph 'articles' on About.com.

This is nothing new. William Eggleston faced much criticism for his work, and many people would consider his work to be mostly snapshots.

William Eggleston - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

eggleston - Google Search

[FullertonImages]

I think for the most part, I'm with Wheatfield on this one.

Photography is intersting among the arts, in that it sort of has two almost independent sides to it. Photography is both art and history. It's both about creating something and about capturing something. A snapshot, is at best one of those. Two things give a photogrpah it's value:

-It's artistic merit. How pleasing it is to look at, how well it conveys a certain feeling or emotion, it's use of various intentional techniques to create a certain look and aesthetic, and
-It's historical value. How important to the viewer is the moment/event/thing capture, and how well was it captured

I'm going to go ahead and say that I think the article itself, if you can call 1 1/2 paragraphs an article, is fairly useless. I'm also going to go ahead and say that just about anything to be found on About.com is equally as brief, uneducated, and useless. What About.com seems to be about is finding people who are far from experts in there field, who have have just enough knowledge to sound smart to beginners, and giving them a voice as an expert on a subject.

Now, I get what she is trying to say in the article, and I somewhat agree. But I think her direction, and the direction of this thread, is confusing good moments with good photography. Someone brought up the historically famous images of JFK and MLK, and how they are just snapshots. It's true. They are just snapshots, and they are great images. But they are not good photographs and they are not art. They're great moments. Just because the moment within a photographs is a great moment, doesn't mean that it is a great photograph.

Snapshots, by what I believe to be a relatively common understanding definition, and similar to what Wheat said, are image that are made on the spur of the moment, within little to no thought for framing, composition, lighting, exposure, or any other creative decisions that should go into making an photograph. The point she is getting at is valid, but her approach is wrong.

I think it's very common to get so caught up with composition, lighting, exposure and all that stuff, that you miss or ignore moments, or even have a boring subject entirely, because all your focused on is having perfect technique. I find myself doing, and I have to remind myself that Content Is King. Great composition, perfect exposure, and skill post processing matter are all worthless if the subject matter and moment themselves are no good.

And the idea that we can so caught up in the technical side of things that we forget the joy of taking photos and importance of just reacting and catching great moments, is equally valid. But you don't get there by ignoring or downplaying the technical side of things. It's wise not to let it become the only thing on your mind when you shoot, but it still needs to be there.

One of the ultimate pursuits of photographic prowess I think, is to be able to just react and snap shots of moments as they happen that are well composed, well exposed, and have artistic value, as well as great subject matter and moments, without having to put much thought into the technical side of things. But first thing's first, those aren't snapshots. They have have been snapped quickly, and they have a very authentic, candid real world feel to them, but they aren't snap shots. They are thoughtful, artistic creations. As soon as thought and creativity go into a shot, it is no longer a snapshot. Second thing, you don't get to this point of being able to create freely withing out being chained to technique, by ignoring the techniques themselves. You spend so much time with them that your creativity becomes their master, rather than the rules themselves being your master.

Charlie Parker, one of the first great jazz saxophone players, was famous for not only his impeccable and incredible technique, but also for his incredibly emotional and melodic playing. He is also famous for saying, "Study music, and learn everything you can about it and about your instrument. Then forget it all and just play." And of course, he didn't mean, forget about it completely. But he meant that the goal of playing freely, is that your head isn't swimming with music theory, and scales, and chord soloing techniques, but that you have programmed all of that so deeply into your head, heart and fingers through contrless hours of intentional practice, that it all just comes out without thinking, and you mind is free to just create.

I believe that same to be true about photography, and most likely, just about anything. The goal of being able to create photographic art freely, without the constraint of rules of composition and technique, leaving you fully free to just focus on the moment and the content of your images, is the highest goal. But it comes from having spent some much time with the rules and techniques that they are ingrained in your very nature and just come out without much conscious thought.

Trying to get to that place, by just not thinking much about them in the first place is just foolish. I could just walk up to the finish line of a marathon and walk across it, and very well say to myself, "I just crossed the finish line of a marathon, I must be a great athlete." But anyone who heard that would most definitely think me foolish. Likewise, a photograph who just says, "I take photos with little regard for composition or technique, I must be a great photographer" would also be as much of a fool. Someone is a great athlete, not because of the inch-wide line they cross at a marathon, but because of the 26.2 miles they ran before crossing that line. Someone is a great photographer, no because hey take photos without much thought, but because of the lifetime of study they put into their craft before doing that, which allows them to create images so freely that are still works of art.

[Parallax]

see if you think of it that way then any shot taken of say JFKs assasination are only snapshots. Any picture of the walks of MLK are nothing but snapshots since they were not done for artistic purposes. ...........

I don't think they were catering to what most would call a small interest group. Pretty much the whole world had some degree of interest there.

[Wheatfield]

Ah, the two paragraph 'articles' on About.com.

This is nothing new. William Eggleston faced much criticism for his work, and many people would consider his work to be mostly snapshots.

William Eggleston - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

eggleston - Google Search

I saw the Eggleston exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago and found it to be appallingly bad photography for the most part.

I find it pretty amusing that people will come up with exceptions to my arguments and think they are actually making some sort of point.
Sure, the cake faced kid might grow up to be the President and all of a sudden that picture may be of some passing interest to a larger population.
It happens, but the odds are so overwhelmingly against it as to be rather statistically insignificant.
The exception can prove the rule as easily as anything else.

Now before anyone tries to impale me again, let me say for the record that about 95% of what I shoot is the basest of snapshots. I shoot a lot of pictures of my Rottie being the cute little dufus that he is.
I think they are cute, my wife agrees and a few of my doggie oriented friends get a chuckle, but they ain't art.
And that's fine, it is as it should be. Photography is about remembering, as well as about creating something pretty, or gripping or powerful.

What annoys me is a lot of the puffery that surrounds what we do.
"The camera wasn't on a tripod so it's a snapshot".
"That cake eating trainwreck is Lyndon Johnston".
"I'm a serious photographer so I use a really good camera and prime lenses"

So what?

One picture might be a masterpiece that surpasses the effort that was put into it, the other is still a crappy snapshot of a now famous person and that nice camera camera may just mean that you can turn out well exposed and focused amateurish snapshots of your dog being cute.

Photography no more needs to be serious than it needs to be anything else.
If what floats for boat is a picture of your kid on a tricycle in front of the garage door taken at VGA resolution, fine.
But I'll bet that as much as you and your mother love it, what you are loving is the subject matter, and anything else about it doesn't matter a whit, and you could print it 10 times as big with 50 times the resolution and the only thing that is going to happen is that a few geeks might be impressed by the dynamic range, and they wouldn't care if it's a picture of Jesus reincarnate on a tricycle.

Never post about something you are passionate about when you've been drinking.

[johnmflores]

I for one don't think that intent has anything to do with it. When you see a photo on a gallery or museum wall, it must stand alone. You do not judge its goodness, awfulness, or greatness on intent. You judge the photo on its own merits, which include subject, composition, historical context, image quality, etc... If intent is there at all, it's near the bottom of the list.

At the end of the day, all of the intent in the world won't make a crap photo good. Or maybe it does????.... WILLIAM EGGLESTON AT PHOTOGRAPHY-NOW.NET

[Wheatfield]

I for one don't think that intent has anything to do with it. When you see a photo on a gallery or museum wall, it must stand alone. You do not judge its goodness, awfulness, or greatness on intent. You judge the photo on its own merits, which include subject, composition, historical context, image quality, etc... If intent is there at all, it's near the bottom of the list.

At the end of the day, all of the intent in the world won't make a crap photo good. Or maybe it does????.... WILLIAM EGGLESTON AT PHOTOGRAPHY-NOW.NET

I don't think all the intent in the world would have helped Eggleston.

However, intent truely does matter, because without some sort of intent, the odds are, none of what you value in a photo will be there with sufficient amount to give the picture any redeeming quality.
Historical context is a canard. It doesn't change what the picture is.

[adwb]

Mithrandir ,O Great Grey Master,
my answer to your thread title question is yes , after all what is the difference between any one taking images "on the fly"and the sort of press photographs that win awards [not war one obviously]

In the Beginning was not Photography was born out of taking "snapshots" ?

Therefore is not the taking of considered ,composed; and evaluated for exposure images Fine Art and not Photography?

[CWyatt]

I really don't think the article's too well thought out, seems more of a throwaway musing. I agree with earlier posters that they're referring more to 'candids' than 'snapshots', which implies lack of thought. I'd consider 99% of the photos I take as candids, no snapshots.

I agree, as well. Sometimes you just snap away and pray.

Some of the most beautiful photos in existence came not from careful composition and staging (conveying what the photographer wanted to say), but by letting the subject speak for itself. And that's where we get the messages that can't be manipulated, the moments that can't be manufactured, the meanings that can't be contrived.

It's observation in its purest form, isn't it?

To me this smudges the careful composition and staging, which are very separate things. The subject never really speaks for itself does it? It's the photographers job to give it the 'voice', which to me is the whole point of effective composition, even if when viewing the image you forget the role the photographer themselves played (as in good photojournalism). No photo is a depiction of full reality of any subject, it's always filtered by the photographer - what they chose to shoot, at what moment, at what angle, using what lens or aperture or shutter speed. It's at best the 'minute part of reality' as HCB said he tried to capture.

[dmeadows85]

CWatt, you've got a very good point there--not only does the photographer somewhat manipulate the scene before them (which is natural and unavoidable), but the audience as well projects their own expectations and imaginations on what they see.

I guess that makes the only truly objective photograph the one that is never taken...

(FullertonImages, those are some of the most intelligent musings I've seen on the topic. Perhaps I have been giving too much credit to luck or timing, and not enough to the instincts of the photographers themselves!)

[FullertonImages]

Very true CWyatt and dmeadow. There is ultimately no such thing as reality, especially when trying to record and event into a certain medium. Every artist, intentionally or subconsciously, brings their own experiences, biases and agendas to the table when they record an event. I feel like even the best and noblest attempts at being totally unbiased and impartial are still not completely successful. And all the things we do to our images, from how we compose them, to what we focus on, to how we edit them, all change the way what was really there will be viewed. I feel like we are more of interpreters of reality, rather than re-presenters of it.

But beyond all that, is that fact that reality itself is so subject to our interpretation. And I don't mean that reality is subjective, but that our understanding, interpretation and viewpoint on the world is incredibly narrow, and is far from complete or all-encompassing. A man and a woman could observe a married couple having an argument, and they would both see the exact same thing. But the woman could walk away from it saying, "Wow, that guy was such an a-hole", because she is viewing it through the lens of having been in an abusive relationship before. And the guy could walk away from it saying, "Wow, she was such a bizzotch", because he is viewing it through the lens of having had a mother who was condescending and controlling. Which one of them is right? Most likely neither. We seldom have enough perspective one situations to judge them accurately. Whether viewing an image or reality, everyone is looking through the lens of their past experiences.

demeadow - Thanks for the compliment! Musings, yes. But any intelligence is more akin to a lucky snapshot...

[johnmflores]

This thread has taken an interesting turn. Interesting stuff, CWatt, dmeadow85, Fullerton... I tried doing a photoessay recently and tried to be "true" to the situation. Showed it to the subject and they had a different take on it. Not entirely different, but in my attempt and his comments both of our biases showed through.