UXOEOD

If I may be so rude, and remembering that a photo is worth a thousand words:

I TOOK this image.


I MADE this image.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Ralph, don't forget to keep in mind that photographers also take an image which is latent until the photosensitive material is processed.
--Bob

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

Eyes take pictures, photographers make photographs.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

:thumbup: :thumbup:

las Loc: West-Central Illinois on the Mississippi

iconographers write icons.

Don Fischer Loc: Antelope, Ore

Make's me think. A photographer can post prep, an artist is probably pretty much done when the paint is applied! Weather or not a photographer is an artist lie's in the mind of people viewing his/her work! I've seen a lot of so called photo art I wouldn't store in the basement.

TGanner Loc: Haines, Alaska

This is a point I enjoy exploring and bantering about on my photo tours. Are photographers artists or voyeurs? As it is usually characterized, artists "make" art. Photographers "take" pictures. I like to invoke Ansel about "making a photograph" by being carefully considerate about composition, subject, and overall technical considerations including lighting.

Recently I read a piece by Bruce Barnbaum in his book "The Essence of Photography" that gave me a whole new perspective on the question. (Much like recomposing a scene!) I would like to share that here, as I think it underlines what differentiates "making" from "taking" a picture or photograph:

"Photography is inherently different from the other arts. If you're a painter, sculptor, writer, composer, or virtually any other type of artist, you start with a blank slate and create (...). The subject or scene that inspires you can be imagined, remembered, or found in photography, on the other hand, (the photographer) must start with a "found object" -- whether it is a landscape, portrait, (...), or virtually anything else you can imagine -- and respond to it with (your camera) that you can then interpret in your own creative way. You generally have to start with what is in front of you, rather than invent something new." "The interpretation begins with the exposure itself, where you see what's in front of you, and simultaneously imagine what you can do with it."

"With landscape or architectural subjects, sports photography, or street photography, you have to work with a changing scene, with the ambient light, and you have to do it with few controls. A painter does not have the same restrictions. The painter can ignore the lock of hair springing upward or the conflict between the sitter and background. The painter can put anything into that painting that does not actually exist in the scene, and can remove any undesirable aspect of the scene from the painting. The photographer has to see the distractions and figure out how to eliminate or subdue them to the point of insignificance. Sometimes it's as simple as moving the location of the camera, so that the relationship between the forms of near and distant objects is better revealed, and sometimes this has to be done quickly before conditions change. The requires skills of quickness in seeing and responding that are quite different from anything required of a painter.

"Most important, you are thinking about the final image while standing behind the camera, and making sensible decisions based on your vision of the final image. You are not just recording the scene. You are now elevating the seeing of the scene to the same level of creative importance as that of your subsequent processing of the exposure."

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

Well yes, I'd say photographers "make" photos. If the photographer and his camera hadn't been there, where ever "there" is, no photo so yes, I'd say they make photos.
We, at least I, commonly call it "take" photos because the subject was already there. All we do is make or take an image of that subject.

jenny Loc: in hiding:)

A photographer will do both depending on circumstances.
If unable to do both he/she is not a photographer.

the f/stops here Loc: New Mexico

Try adding this into the equation: Photographer capture images and make photographs from those images. Have fun with your challenge in linguistics. Best, J. Goffe

Don Fischer Loc: Antelope, Ore

Well, there's goes my ego. I don't know how to PP worth a darn !

NormanHarley Loc: Colorado

I can't take a picture without a camera, so I am thinking that my camera is the tool that takes the picture for me. What I do with my camera and then in editing is what makes the picture that my camera takes.

jenny Loc: in hiding:)

A photographer can and will do both for different reasons.
A snap shooter cannot do both.

jenny Loc: in hiding:)

,

jenny Loc: in hiding:)

* * *
Well let's save your ego, we don't need to destroy it! PP skill does not make one who presses a shutter button into a photographer!!
Consider the work of the photojournalist who may be working in a stressful even war-torn environment. Good training and/or experience will get the picture where action is happening fast.
Consider the work of someone who did portraiture and sent it to the pro lab for the "retoucher", but the photographer would know how to make the basic product better than a snap-shooter.He/she might also do other things for pleasure or profit.
Or consider someone who does still life slowly, paying attention to every detail.
But what is a snap shot? Something generally done without much if any thought about the composition, contrast, color or anything but whatever is in front of the lens....
Is it not then thought and effort, or the lack of it, that go into "making" or" taking" something quite different?