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MHHMHH79
Premium Member
join:2014-08-23
Kew Gardens, NY

MHHMHH79

Premium Member

Photographs/Photography

It's taken some time for me to realize that what falls out of our cameras are just snapshots, personal photojournalism or photographs that are meant to be artistic, and not finished images or what I would call photography.

I think that photography requires that these photographs be processed so that our original reasons for taking the photographs are made clear. This might require minimal or extensive processing, and when your personal criteria are met you will have a personal piece of photography. Better still, when a large group understands and reacts you might even have a piece of universal art.

If you're posting for other reasons, I'd like to know what they are.

SueS
Premium Member
join:2007-05-16
Macon, MO

1 recommendation

SueS

Premium Member

My definition of a snapshot

A snapshot is when an image looks like it could be shot by an eight year old child with the camera set on auto.

rcroning
D700 Rocks
Premium Member
join:2005-05-21
Winnipeg, MB

2 recommendations

rcroning

Premium Member

said by SueS:

My definition of a snapshot

A snapshot is when an image looks like it could be shot by an eight year old child with the camera set on auto.

I wouldn't be so quick to put down young photographers.

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SueS
Premium Member
join:2007-05-16
Macon, MO

1 recommendation

SueS

Premium Member

Don't get your shorts in a bunch, I am not putting down children, it is a general statement about children in general, and is how I decide when an image is a snapshot. It is an easy way to explain to others the difference in a snapshot and a photograph that most everyone can understand. Everybody knows there are gifted children at just about everything.

rcroning
D700 Rocks
Premium Member
join:2005-05-21
Winnipeg, MB

2 recommendations

rcroning

Premium Member


I apologize if my comments got you all rattled and twisted your old bloomers. That wasn't my intent. But you certainly need to get much better at ways to explain yourself than how you do now. I have seen photographs taken by children that are far superior to a lot of what I have seen here. So for you to equate snapshots with something only a child can do, is tantamount to saying superior photography is something that only adults can do. That's just plain wrong, but you probably wouldn't see it that way since you always seem to make comments that carry an air of elitist snobbishness. Oh well, all that's irrelevant. Please show us what you can do before you put others down. Words are cheap.

SueS
Premium Member
join:2007-05-16
Macon, MO

SueS

Premium Member

You have overlooked the word general in my response.

Willy
Premium Member
join:2000-09-24
USA

5 recommendations

Willy to MHHMHH79

Premium Member

to MHHMHH79
To me a snapshot is documenting a personal moment in time.
A photograph is an attempt to create something artistic, finished or not.

Artistic photography requires planning and forethought and to say it's just a snapshot (by my definition of what a snapshot is), is just wrong.

Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, etc., etc., didn't take snapshots that got turned into art with post processing, they created art in the camera.

Photojournalism is a whole different animal.
You need to be true to the subject matter, any manipulation of the image distorts it and is unacceptable.

Of course everyone judges everyone elses images based on their own personal idea of what a snapshot or a photograph should look like.

So if John AverageGuy makes an attempt to get a great shot (in his mind) of River Street in Savannah, GA and breaks all the rules of photography, it's a photograph to him and a snapshot to me.
Of course the opposite is true too.

Tex
Dave's not here
Premium Member
join:2012-10-20

Tex to MHHMHH79

Premium Member

to MHHMHH79
Snapshot or photograph? I can't decide.



Willy
Premium Member
join:2000-09-24
USA

3 recommendations

Willy

Premium Member

said by Tex:

Snapshot or photograph? I can't decide.

I assume a Photograph to the photographer.
"To Me" it's a poor attempt as a photograph "AKA" work of art

MHHMHH79
Premium Member
join:2014-08-23
Kew Gardens, NY

MHHMHH79 to Tex

Premium Member

to Tex
To me it's a snapshot and/or a piece of personal journalism.

jaykaykay
4 Ever Young
MVM
join:2000-04-13
USA

1 recommendation

jaykaykay to Tex

MVM

to Tex
To me, it is what you want it to be and what your intent was taking it to start with...the ultimate end of the original shot. Is it a finished product as it stands or is there something more that can be done with it to make it stand out?

Tex
Dave's not here
Premium Member
join:2012-10-20

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Tex

Premium Member

Actually, it's a finished product by photographer Cindy Sherman. The photograph, Untitled #96, is one Sherman took of herself when she was commisioned by the print magazine Artforum to create a portfolio of photographs for upcoming issues in 1981. The photographs were rejected because the editor thought that they might be "misunderstood". Subsequently, Untitled #96 was sold at a Christie's auction on May 11, 2011 to New York dealer Philippe Segalot for $3.89 million, making it, at the time, the most expensive photograph ever sold.

Interestingly, Sherman went to college with the intention of studying art, but after her freshman year she realized "...there was nothing more to say [through painting]. I was meticulously copying other art and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead." I would say her decision paid off handsomely. Wouldn't you?

MHHMHH79
Premium Member
join:2014-08-23
Kew Gardens, NY

MHHMHH79

Premium Member

said by Tex:

The photograph, Untitled #96, is one Sherman took of herself

I guess it's personal journalism, as I thought. Clicking on her name in your post leads to a site where you can look at some of her work.

One man's meat is another man's poison.