What turns a snapshot into a photograph?

[slackercruster]

What turns a snapshot into a photograph?

[Ads]

[Bitter Jeweler]

The impact of the content.

[Bynx]

I think a snapshot can have as much impact as a photograph. Where the difference lies, to me, is the amount of thought that was used before the shutter button was pressed. To some its just semantics, and a snapshot is the same thing as a photograph. It does sound like snapshot would be taken with a point and shoot camera without any controls other than shutter release. While a photograph is taken with a camera with controls coming out of its ying yang. I think the photographer is the only one who can call it whether its a snapshot or a photograph. To me -- no thought = snapshot. Planning, intent and execution = photograph. And thats not to say that a photograph is better than a snapshot. As bitter jeweler said, content is important.

[vtf]

The viewer.

[pixmedic]

What turns a snapshot into a photograph?

changing the spelling

[aavivi]

The lighting, focus, composition to name three...

[KmH]

Any image made by a camera is a photograph.

A snapshot is a photograph made with no preparation or planning.

[charlie76]

The photo gods

[Fred Berg]

Opinion.

When Frederic Lord Leighton painted Flaming June, it was received as a major work of art from a superstar artist. Nowadays it is sold at any DIY store as the most terrible piece of kitsch.


If you had asked what is the difference between a snapshot and a serious photograph, or what influences how opinion is formed on this, you would have posed a far more interesting and more challenging question.

[imagemaker46]

If I see something I shoot it, to me it is nothing more than a snap shot, there still has to be a lot to the image for me to shoot it and keep it. It is that simple, to someone else it may look like a lot of thought went into it.

I think that some people never get past the snap shot stage, the point and shoot on auto without any idea what they are even looking at. There is nothing wrong with that. It's like family photos on vacation, most I would consider a snap shots.

[amolitor]

What's a snapshot? What's a photograph?

The definitions I use are:

A snapshot is taken to record a moment. It's taken for the purpose of reminding the photographer of something, of this moment. The photographer may intend to share this moment, via the photograph, with a few other people, and perhaps other people who are Here, Now. A snapshot is for me and a few people near me, and it's about this moment.

A photograph as art is made to communicate something, which might be a sense of this moment, but might be something else, to a wider audience. A successful such photograph does in fact communicate something to lots of people. Art is about communicating widely, beyond me, and my close personal friends.

A snapshot can certainly do that as well, it's not made with that intent, though.

[JoshuaSimPhotography]

The connection of emotion within it

[Schwettylens]

Tone mapping

[Compaq]

An empirical connection between thoughtthroughness and emotional impact, defines the photographity of a picture.

[amolitor]

"Photographity" is my new favorite word.