On The Ansel Adams Quote
You don't take a photograph, you make it. - Ansel Adams
There's always this debate of "what's the difference between 'taking a picture' and 'making a photograph'" that has been something I've had talked about in various classes over the years.
"Taking a picture" has some interesting context within it. The idea that you are grabbing a moment and walking away with it. In some ways it in my mind creates the image of the funsaver snap by a tourist wearing socks and sandals or the cheesy party pics that we all enjoy and make from time to time. It's a representation of what we've experienced, without much substance. The image languishes in its on special form of purgatory until it gets viewed for a short period of time, or gets a long study, often under the influence of booze and melancholy.
"Making a photograph" also has its own context. There's a certain level of craft implied by just the use of the word "making." There's a higher level of you working on the image, and not just because of the Zone System implications from one of the darkroom masters. There's the idea that there is more care and feeding into creating the final product is huge. Even when both a picture and a photograph may take the same fraction of a second to be produced by a camera, it's what happened before and after that separate between the two.
Not all of my work is pictures, not all of it is photographs, but I feel that I like to use a third classification in regards to my work -- Images. I'll let the viewer decide whether its a picture or a photograph.
- CWM
There's always this debate of "what's the difference between 'taking a picture' and 'making a photograph'" that has been something I've had talked about in various classes over the years.
"Taking a picture" has some interesting context within it. The idea that you are grabbing a moment and walking away with it. In some ways it in my mind creates the image of the funsaver snap by a tourist wearing socks and sandals or the cheesy party pics that we all enjoy and make from time to time. It's a representation of what we've experienced, without much substance. The image languishes in its on special form of purgatory until it gets viewed for a short period of time, or gets a long study, often under the influence of booze and melancholy.
"Making a photograph" also has its own context. There's a certain level of craft implied by just the use of the word "making." There's a higher level of you working on the image, and not just because of the Zone System implications from one of the darkroom masters. There's the idea that there is more care and feeding into creating the final product is huge. Even when both a picture and a photograph may take the same fraction of a second to be produced by a camera, it's what happened before and after that separate between the two.
Not all of my work is pictures, not all of it is photographs, but I feel that I like to use a third classification in regards to my work -- Images. I'll let the viewer decide whether its a picture or a photograph.
- CWM