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

I think you should focus on composition rather than on trying to define the difference between a picture and a photograph which is vague and open to considerable argument. Is that really necessary?

I would focus more on a discussion of the use of light, shadow, texture and shape in color and monochrome images, as well as the general 'rules' of composition which are a useful starting point in composing a visually interesting image.

Keep it as simple and practical as possible with concrete examples that clearly delineate the points you're trying to get across. I would avoid vague and amorphous definitions that may ultimately cause more confusion than clarity for young inexperienced minds.

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.

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.

Spoken like a true slide presenter guy.

Here are some important items to know for those who have 'slides', if you want your 'slides' to last. NEVER project any Kodachrome transparency films, they fade badly with projection*. Ektachrome (all E process films) will also fade, but not as notably (see below * Kodak Ektachrome Slide Duplicating Film, No. 5071).

When using your projector, never use that last position on your projector's on switch, it will fade any transparency film mire rapidly**.

Paper mounts are preferred over the garbage Pako white slide mounts due to the fact that the Paco mounts use PVC, which is destructive to the life of all transparencies in storage. When stored properly, paper mounts will not decompose nor produce fugus (this is a humidity issue). For most it is best to remove any mount from a stored transparency as this will assure a long life for the image in storage.

A suggestion: If you have a set of 'slides' in paper mounts a way to mark the 'slides' is to use the rubber end of a pencil's eraser with permanent ink (fingerprint ink is a good choice). Any camera original image is marked with a star shape, any duplicate is marked with a dot, a lesser camera original can be marked with a star and a dot. Never let a camera original out of the archive, have it duplicated on 5071, or like films. (yea, I know, just try finding a pencil these days!).

** 'Projectors switch full on', a feature used when presenting a camera original transparency for visual evaluation where the client is shown that camera original image. Photographers typically reduced exposure by 1/3 to 1/2 stop (making them darker) so that the image was better suited for separation, anticipating image printing for reproduction (like some of us do with digital image making).

* Kodak Ektachrome Slide Duplicating Film, No. 5071. This film does well in both dark storage and in projection. Kodachrome is superior for dark storage. (That is why MD Anderson Hospital maintains their archive of transparency from the past in a dark storage facility, and yes, the transparencies were processed by Kodak, and all are mounted in Kodak paper mounts).

If we REALLY study the history of the CAMERA [camera obscura] we find that it was used for MANY CENTURIES to DRAW/PAINT/TRACE immages projected by the pinhole on the back of the camera. This history goes back to at least 400BC.
SO, we cannot claim any seperation between the Camera and other forms of recording images.
The Camera dosn't have to be Film OR Digital, but can be rendered in Pencil, Watercolor, Oil, Acrylic or any other media we choose.
The technology CANNOT be seperated from the Artform.