Snapshots and Universality

[Dikkie]

After all my time here, I STILL don't understand why there needs to be labels at all.
All "photographs" are "Pictures"
All "Pictures" are "Photographs"
If you enjoy taking EITHER of the above, You're a "Photographer"
They are all taken with the love of one hobby "Photography"

I would consider it snobbish to have the need to label such things.

You can label anything, just to know what you're talking about, doesn't make it bad...

Some people label color vs black and white photographs. Or landscape, or people, or... like the galleries on this forum are categorised aswel.
Some people label snapshots and label other kinds of photos. It does not mean that snapshots are bad.
It's a pejorative way, yes. But that was not the point of this discussion.

The thing is that if you want to "define" the word snapshot, a lot of people have different ideas about it.
And the idea that the OP is giving, is quite nice. It's about professionally made photographs. Not the most direct type of photograph that is common sense when thinking about snapshots.

The idea of universality has a range. It's like the depth of field.
It radiates.

 

[Dikkie]

Yeah, this ball just keeps bouncing and at the end of the day, what does it really matter.
I made reference earlier to war photography. Are they photographers because they are getting paid, taking mere snapshots, by Charlies definition...And, what happens when that "snapshot" make the cover of Time magazine. Is it then a photograph?
Like I said, the ball keeps bouncing and what does it really matter.

It does matter that the ball stops bouncing and that everyone stops arguing against, for * sake.

It matters that the ball keeps on rolling. Leave your mind open, let the light come in your camera, let blood flow through your brains.

The most common way what people think about snapshots is like: a professional photographer looking at a lousy image will call it a snapshot, a n00b looking at a professional's photograph will call it a photograph. That is mostly technically spoken or food for the elite. But that's not the point here...

A snapshot is not about how technically the photograph has been made in this case. It's about the 'universality'. That keyword is the main subject that most people haven't read in the OP's post. Most people just read the word 'snapshot' and the negative thought around it.

A war photograph that is made by accident, but on the right time on the right location, can be done technically wrong, but can have such an emotional value for anyone on the planet, in a way you cannot say it is a snapshot.
A wedding photographer that shoots a couple by purpose, so technically perfect, but without any emotional value to any other person at the other side of the planet, you can call a snapshot. For the married couple, it's family and friends, it can be a photograph. An image can be a snapshot AND/OR a photograph, depending on who's watching it.

 

[jefflawsonn]

As per my opinion, I think that the word snapshot in the way that it is used on this site connotes a lack of deliberation or active photographic "planning." Even photojournalists who photograph in the moment have to be aware of light, dark, composition etc...