Define Photography..

[VWPETE]

I have been wondering about this for a while...what is the difference in your opinion. I beleve there is somehting artistic about photography wich sets it apart from your average snap shot. we have a "photo gallery" section ( snap shots) and a Photography section. let me know what you all think.

 

[Sonifo]

A snapshot is something taken on without thought. It is also a picture that can be thought of like family shots or a when you see your kids doing something funny you quickly run and get the camera. Snapshots are for sharing with family and friends.

A photograph is a picture that took some thought. You took time to get the right settings, lighting and such. I think a portrait can be a photograph. I also believe you can snap a good photograph even it is at the spur of the moment. I did that the other day when taking pictures of flowers. I seen a bee buzzing around and quickly started shooting. The shots turned out pretty good. A photograph is to be hung on your wall or sold.

 

[Stonjie]

The hardest thing for me is to get the thing I see unto paper.
Anyone can snapshot. but the real skill is seeing what most people don't.

 

[NerdySurfer/rick]

id say, photography is the capture of a moment in time. preserved for generations. a picture of a street in a major town will show you the morals of the people of that town. photograpy is a very powerful medium, not always used for the Glory of God. but it can be, and it should be.

 

[Mr Hako]

Sorry Sonifo, Your distinctions between a snap-shot and a photograph are quite vague. Some of the most iconic images ever would be snap-shots in your definition. The raising of the US flag on Iwa Jima, the famous image of Che Guvara.

I recently watched on TV an interview with the photographer who took the famous Iwa Jima shot. He was unaware the flag was being raised, someone yelled to him and he turned round and shot without looking in the viewfinder, focusing or setting his shutter and aperture. Just an instinctive click.

Sometimes, getting the image on film, any image, is more important that the lighting or other technical considerations.

Photographs don't need to be artistic, pleasing to the eye, or even comfortable to look at. They can show terrible things, like famine, war, death. (The photos taken by British soldiers as evidence of Nazi evil when they liberated the concentration camps after the second world war are harrowing and terrible to look at).

In Japan, a photograph is called "Shasin" which means (roughly) "Show the truth". Which is just about right,

 

[Ormo]

Artistic photography is art using light as the medium.
Like any art it represents much more than the image it shows, emotionally and philosophically.
As with any art, the subject is not the most important thing. The Mona Lisa is art whether you know her or not!

In general iconic images are something else. They are as much art as scrapbook new cuttings are art. They are historic rather than artistic. Factual rather than creative.

It is possible that an iconic image can be art. For eg if someone paints the titanic sinking and includes in the painting feeling and emotion etc and successfully conveys that to the viewer then it is really art. Otherwise it is simply documentation.

Almost every painting will be artistic as it is virtually impossible to spent enough time to paint something without your own opinions and emotions affecting it, however with a camera it is easy(ish!) to take photos that simply copy life. In order for them to be art the photographer needs to add to it something of themself.

 

[Extirpated Wildlife]

I liken Photography to Basketball. You pick up a basketball and start shooting the ball. It doesn't make you a professional Basketball player, but it maybe fun for you. For some, basketball is just tossing a piece of trash into a trash can. Others it is a career that generates millions of dollars for themselves. Others its a hobby. There are all kinds of levels of basketball. And it takes as much dedication to Photography as it does Basketball to excell to be one of the best. And there are certainly plenty of photographers who just enjoy the hobby of it.