Perhaps start with emotions and the emotions a photograph, picture (whatever you want to call it, makes no difference).

The entire purpose is to generate an emotional response of whatever kind the image creator - photographer, snap-shooter, painter etc - wants the audience to feel.

Far too often we get lost in the weeds (especially on sites like this!) agonizing over f-stops and shutter speeds and ISOs etc, all of which are mere tools.

When you look at a Michelangelo sculpture, no-one worries about the weight of his hammer; no-one cares about the exact width of Rembrandt's brush.

A picture is a creation made by means of artistic tools, a painting, drawing, cartoon, there are many always to make a picture. A photographs is a creation that uses a mechanical device fitted with an optical tool called a lens that is critical to a camera. Many people use the terms interchangeably, yet those who understand the terms understand their use. It is much like a "photographer" who calls the little visual windows calling them 'slides' when the proper term is a transparency.

To speak to your 'question' of note in with regards to the subject of composition. A picture has as one of its most important aspects that of composition. While a photograph may have as one of its elements, that of composition, all photographs have as their most critical elements that of time.

This may appear to be a difficult point to put across, so we can speak about sculpture as an illustrating. In sculpture, or to any decent sculptor will tell you, one always begins with what sculptors call The Givens. When you have the first 'given' then you have removed many of the 'other' givens. Say you elect to cast a piece as your end result; You have then removed several possibilities (such as creating the work in natural stone, you cannot create by casting in natural stone). The initial given opens possibilities but closes the door on other possibilities.

Bear with me. In creating by way of a picture you have certain given as in sculpture. The surface, the materials to make the work, all of these are as in sculpture, these are the givens. The composition may be a vary critical given to the picture.

Unlike all other forms of creative expression, a photograph does not ever have a first given, that first given is locked in, the first given is time. There is no way around this. In fact most have a lot of trouble with this because there is such confusion with the definition of what photography is. Photography is quite simply and has its 'foot' locked into this first given, that of time. The antiquated definition of photography being "drawing with light" is so not the first given for photography that it is the hobgoblin of the thinking that goes with an understanding of what is the nature of a photograph.

I would finish with a rather odd notion, that the artwork, generally associated loosely with sculpture and the subset of sculpture called earth works, that of Robert Smithson's masterwork Spiral Jetty*. Perhaps one of the few modern art works that speaks to the primacy of issues associated with the main feature of a photograph, that of time.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty

As an ex-1980s AV producer of many multi-image* slide shows, I beg to differ:

> An UNMOUNTED positive film image is a transparency. If it is in a slide mount, the transparency is referred to as a slide.

> Slides go into slide projectors and slide viewers.

> Unmounted transparencies typically get duplicated or scanned, or discarded because they are unworthy of mounting, duplicating, or scanning.

*Multi-Image was the simultaneous projection of multiple slide images in synchronization with a soundtrack. No one does it now, because digital video has replaced it. But it was a really powerful tool for corporate communications and other presentation needs. The CIA used it. The Miami police department used it for training simulations. Museums built exhibits with it. We used it for training and sales motivation, and to generate excitement about our company and its products. It could create a spectacle accompanied by high fidelity music, narration, and sound effects, in both large and small theaters and hotel ballrooms. When you put words, images and music together, something magical can happen. These days it's mostly done with video, but it's called "film," in honor of the medium that reigned supreme in the entertainment industry for a century.

In our studio, we only mounted the transparencies we wished to keep and project, duplicate, or scan. We used a variety of paper, plastic, and glass mounts, depending upon the end use. All slides projected in multi-image shows were in glass pin-registered mounts, so slides in multiple projectors could be projected on top of one another for titles, insets, animation, and other effects. We often used three, six, or twelve projectors on one screen area.

There once was a small industry dedicated to producing 2- to 30-projector slide shows for corporate meetings, events, workshops, museums, etc. We even had our own International Association for Multi-Image, which had summer conventions in major cities and winter conventions at NAVA/ICIA trade shows, and later, COMMTEX trade shows. NAVA/ICIA and COMMTEX were large AV industry trade shows encompassing a broader array of applied technologies, most of which were for the education market and churches. There were many small companies making computerized projector control systems, screens, slide production camera gear, slide mounts, racks for projectors, cases to transport equipment, etc. Kodak and Elmo made pro-grade 35mm slide projectors for our industry. It was a heady time for some of us. It started in the late 1960s, and wound down in the early 1990s. Peak multi-image was 1977 to 1990. PowerPoint, digital video projectors, and digital video killed it off. The technology is dead, but the techniques live on, in film, in TV commercials, on YouTube, and in similar venues.

I'm doing a presentation for junior high children on Composition, and want to start with the question, " what the difference between a picture vs a photograph?" My answer is a picture is a memory you take for memories sake, a photograph is a memory you take after planning it out and carefully choosing how, when , why , where and who.
I know you hogs probably can give me a better description and that sometimes a picture becomes a lucky photograph. Any positive help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

I'm doing a presentation for junior high children on Composition, and want to start with the question, " what the difference between a picture vs a photograph?" My answer is a picture is a memory you take for memories sake, a photograph is a memory you take after planning it out and carefully choosing how, when , why , where and who.
I know you hogs probably can give me a better description and that sometimes a picture becomes a lucky photograph. Any positive help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Young teenagers in Junior High School can learn etymology, word origins, usage, and precise definitions in ENGLISH class. If you want to gain their attention and interest, explain a few principles of "composition" and show them how to improve their photography with their camers and cell phones.

"Pictures, Photographs, and Images are just words. I have seen and heard museum curators and art gallery folks, serious collectors, and professors of fine art call MASTERPIECES, "pictures" with absolutely no disrespect but with enthusiasm, affection, and familiarity. I have heard virtuoso classical musicians, accomplished music teachers, and musicologists refer to passages of Baroque symphonies as "tunes".

If you prefer the word "Photograph" then use it- it will rub off. If you imply tht "Picture is a "bad" or inappropriate term or that it describes a poorly crafted photograph, you are just muddying the waters.

My suggestion? The way I teach newcomers to photogahy or young fols about compositors is simple. I start off by teelg that just like written composition, yoy want to tell a story, make a point, or a statement. If your writing is disorganized, confusing to the readers, or contains material that distracts from the point you want to make, the story you are trying to tell, the point you want t make and your statement may be lost In visual art, which includes photogahy, rather than words, sentences, and paragraphs to make our points, we use lines, shapes, colors, direction of light, contrasts, and placemt of our subjects in the frame to direct the viewer's eyes to the most important element of the image.

Once you explain this concept, the next step is to show them PICTURES and how various compositions are more powerful than others, explain a few basic "rules" and how to either use these "rules" or purposely break them for creative purposes.

My favorite theme for kids is "What's Wrong" With This PICTURE"? " Look, it is sharply in focus, the colors are bright, and the photographer set his camer correctly but what do y'all think"? Then I show them the improved composition. I might put in a word about the rule of thirds, or negative space, but at the begging, I don't dwell on those terms.

I hope the kids come back for more. Then, you can get into dynamic symmetry, Euclid Elements, the Golen Ratio, and all that good stuff. To kids, however, if they are not interested in the nuts and bolts of taking pictures, all of that stuff is meaningless technobabble.

I only give them one bit of philosophy. "Composition is a puttg together of elements so as to form a unified whole"!

Forget about buzzwords. If you keep correcting their English or scientific word usage, you will turn them off. If you prefer, AGAIN, use the proper terminology and let it rub off- kids are smart!

Hey, y'all, I was once in Junior High! I was not much of a science nerd (more interested in gym class) until Mr. Silverman's 8th Grade Science class. He was teaching chemical reactions and rapid oxidation. So, he mixed Potassium Permanganate and Glycerin and just about smoked us out of the classroom. If you needed to be a scientist to make a really good stink bomb- I was all in!