The snapshot as an art form

[mfunnell]

Aren't most street photos just snapshots glorified with the respectability that comes with calling them art? hehe

Well, I'll laugh with you on that. My "technique" for taking photographs, such as it is, often consists of wandering around places I find congenial and simply taking photos of scenes I find visually interesting as I'm doing that. The resulting photos can be called "snapshots" (often, but not always, intended disparagingly), or "wildlife", or "travel" or "street" or whatever - often based (to my mind) on criteria of limited or no relevance such as the equipment used to take the photo.

I was once "accused" of engaging in "wildlife street photography" because I just wandered through the bush with a camera, taking photos of the (animal) inhabitants. (The "accusation" was, I think, intended as a compliment and I certainly took it as such in context.)

I even, quite frequently, choose similar content that ends up with different labels, such as mothers and children:





...Mike

 

[nuckabean]

I've been looking at a website called tinyvices recently, a sort of online gallery curated by Tim Barber. Many of the pictures there could be considered snapshots but that doesn't make them any less interesting to me.

The link is
http://tinyvices.com/portfolios.html

One portfolio that I particularly is Ryan McGinley's work from 2004
http://tinyvices.com/ryan_mcginley_1

As a warning, a fair amount of the pictures on this site are a lot racier than most of the things that get posted here, but if you're open to some nudity and uncomfortable images, there's a lot of great work there. Definitely not safe for work though.

 

[Paulbe]

This may have been mentioned before--but--didn't Roger and Frances write a book about snapshots?
Paul

 

[FrankS]

I can add to my statement that anything can be an art form, and that it depends only on the intent of the person creating it: Anything can be an art form if art dealers can sell it, regardless of the intent of the person who created it.

 

[AgentX]

It's really a pointless discussion without a particular context.

However, there is an inherent tension with photography used in an intentionally "artistic" context, as there's a social dimension which is bound to photography and its function(s) outside of the art world. (And vice-versa.) A lot of good work deals with that tension...some tries to avoid it...but none of it means anything without a particular example to discuss.

The "snapshot" in and of itself just doesn't exist, as many previous posters point out.

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

Do you really want us all to think you simply hold up your P&S and press the button when Pavlov's bell goes off? How do you even decide to take a picture?

Not sure what this has to do with what I wrote:

Lately, I've been more inclined to have a obvious subject in my photos and put it in the middle (sorry Mr. Eggleston). I like photos that don't really call attention to themselves as photos but are about the people, things and places they depict.

Anyway, to answer your questions:

No, I don't expect you to think that.

I decide to take a picture when I see something that I find interesting.

 

[mickallen]

It's funny but I was going to post asking the question "What defines a snapshot" as a relative newcomer to photography (18 months) I have struggled understanding what a snapshot is, as everything you seem to read indicates that snapshots are a bad thing and I was wanting to make sure that I wasn't unwittingly taking them.

I had come to the conclusion a snapshot must be any photograph other than ones that had been pre-planned, so you new beforehand what you wanted to achieve in terms of subject, lighting, composition etc.

But really what this thread has highlighted to me is that one mans/womans snapshot could be anothers art, which as a newcomer is very reassuring, in my avoidance of taking "snapshots" I was trying to plan everything before actually taking the camera out of the bag. I was thinking how do most people here take such good photgraphs, with the constraint of all this forethought.

So really what I am trying to say is the word snapshot is very confusing to a newcomer as everything seems to point to snapshot = badshot to be avoided at all costs.

 

[Merkin]

I'm not trying to pick a fight, or anything, but I do wonder about the utility of that definition. I don't think I ever take a photo without some regard to composition. Whenever I bring camera to eye I'm pretty sure that consciously or unconsciously I'm thinking on how I can make a "decent photo" (whatever that means) of the scene in front of me. Even when taking the most "snapshotty" of photographs.

Here's one that I took at a birthday BBQ for some friends' son last December, selected because its the only "family snap" shot I can think of that I have online (used as an illustration in a write-up I did on a new DSLR):



While hardly "art" or the best-composed photo that's ever been made, I do recall that I thought, albiet very casually, about how how I might go about taking the photo: making decisions about where to stand, what focal length and aperture to set and timing the shutter release to have the three people in frame "all in a row".

I also wonder whether intent is the best guide to deciding "what sort of photo" a photograph may be. Shouldn't the photo itself (or, perhaps for some, its position or inclusion in a sequence of photos) determine that, rather than the stated or imputed intent of the photographer?

It's all a funny business really. I have a couple of photos taken during a trip which I think are strong enough to "stand alone" as photos in themselves. Does that mean they aren't the happy-snap travel photos they "really were" taken as?

...Mike

According to my definition, I wouldn't consider that a snapshot. To me, snapshot doesn't refer to the measurable speed with which the photo was taken, but the amount of thought that went in to the photo. I would say that if you never just shoot without thinking of composition, you never take snapshots. Like I said though, there is certainly plenty of room for fuzziness in my attempt at a definition. I really dig that unicyclist shot, btw. Good stuff.

 

[lawrence]

Look up info on Lisette Model, a snapshot type of photography has been her trademark, like this one, very well known:
http://media.timeoutnewyork.com/resizeImage/htdocs/export_images/629/629.x600.art.model.rev.jpg?

"I am a passionate lover of the snapshot, because of all photographic images it comes closest to the truth. The snapshot is a specific spiritual moment. It cannot be willed or desired or achieved. It simply happens, to certain people and not to others. Some people may never take a snapshot in their lives, though they take many pictures.

Snapshots can be made on any camera - old cameras, new cameras, box cameras, Instamatics and Nikons. But what really makes them occur is a specific state of mind. A snapshot is not a performance. It has no pretence or ambition. It is something that happens to the taker rather than his performing it. Innocence is the quintessence of the snapshot. I wish to distinguish between innocence and ignorance. Innocence is one of the highest forms of being and ignorance is one of the lowest."

Lisette Model

 

[FrankS]

A quick and rough definition of snapshot for me is - a photograph taken simply to record a subject or event without consideration of artistic/aesthetic merit of the outcome. No effort is expended to consider composition, background, lighting, timing, etc.

 

[Merkin]

It's funny but I was going to post asking the question "What defines a snapshot" as a relative newcomer to photography (18 months) I have struggled understanding what a snapshot is, as everything you seem to read indicates that snapshots are a bad thing and I was wanting to make sure that I wasn't unwittingly taking them.

I had come to the conclusion a snapshot must be any photograph other than ones that had been pre-planned, so you new beforehand what you wanted to achieve in terms of subject, lighting, composition etc.

But really what this thread has highlighted to me is that one mans/womans snapshot could be anothers art, which as a newcomer is very reassuring, in my avoidance of taking "snapshots" I was trying to plan everything before actually taking the camera out of the bag. I was thinking how do most people here take such good photgraphs, with the constraint of all this forethought.

So really what I am trying to say is the word snapshot is very confusing to a newcomer as everything seems to point to snapshot = badshot to be avoided at all costs.

Even if you are thinking fast, the key is thinking about your shots. It took me years before I could take a decent photo in a short amount of time. I spent years with my camera always on a tripod, adjusting this and that, making sure that my compositions were just so. Since I got those years of practice in, I can now do those things in the blink of an eye, freehand. Here is an example of a shot I had essentially no time in which to grab:

I am not 100 percent pleased with my composition here, but in the span of a couple of seconds I was able to do a bit more than just put the fox in the middle and trip the shutter. It is just a matter of practice, muscle memory, and teaching your brain to intuit compositional tricks. IMHO, the best thing you can do as a pretty new photographer is to keep planning everything out, keep being methodical, and don't get sloppy until the shots that might take you ten minutes to get right currently get to the point where you can pretty much get them automatically. I am of the opinion that photographers need to walk on five legs before they learn to walk on two.

 

[Spider67]

I remember that word was sometimes used to take value off a certain photo: A guy made some nudes and also took pix when the model was not posing - refreshingly spontaneous ones. But when some pole saw them together they used derogatory to discern from the "correctly posed" nudes.
So for me snap shot would mean a photo that was not posed. As I remember that moes of the family pics were carefully arranged snapshots did stand out. Whereas the later when we shot away in BW "snapshotesque" photography was the standard.
HCB was a hunter and as much as I know ("One hour photo" also cites that) "snapshot is a hunting term.

 

[pvdhaar]

A quick and rough definition of snapshot for me is - a photograph taken simply to record a subject or event without consideration of artistic/aesthetic merit of the outcome. No effort is expended to consider composition, background, lighting, timing, etc.

Better than quick and rough.. I think it's a jolly good definition. Certainly worth to keep in mind.

Oh, and it's precisely why I find snapshots have such tremendous charm. They're often about the very things people care about and they provide better insight into what was on the photographer's -or should I say snapshooter's- mind than a lot of ostentatiously deep impersonal artistic hoopla.

 

[40oz]

Not sure what this has to do with what I wrote:



Anyway, to answer your questions:

No, I don't expect you to think that.

I decide to take a picture when I see something that I find interesting.

personally, I'm with you. I guess what I am getting at is that, as has been stated already, "intent" is a big portion of how we separate "art" from "not art."

I'm just saying it really seems like you are purposely refusing to put an effort into things out of a perverse "FU" to anyone who might look at your shots. And that's too bad.

 

[40oz]

Even if you are thinking fast, the key is thinking about your shots. It took me years before I could take a decent photo in a short amount of time. I spent years with my camera always on a tripod, adjusting this and that, making sure that my compositions were just so. Since I got those years of practice in, I can now do those things in the blink of an eye, freehand. Here is an example of a shot I had essentially no time in which to grab:
...

I am not 100 percent pleased with my composition here, but in the span of a couple of seconds I was able to do a bit more than just put the fox in the middle and trip the shutter. It is just a matter of practice, muscle memory, and teaching your brain to intuit compositional tricks. IMHO, the best thing you can do as a pretty new photographer is to keep planning everything out, keep being methodical, and don't get sloppy until the shots that might take you ten minutes to get right currently get to the point where you can pretty much get them automatically. I am of the opinion that photographers need to walk on five legs before they learn to walk on two.

Nice shot.

I agree with your ends. I disagree that a person needs to use a tripod and be slow and methodical to learn what you are talking about, but that's a minor point. I DO agree that the end goal is to be able to take a "snapshot" that looks methodical and carefully composed. I think we agree on more than we disagree on 😀

I'm not carrying a tripod because that's not the kind of pictures I take. That may be the kind of pictures I hang on my wall, but whatever 🙂 I do practice holding a camera steady in my hands, and learn what postures make that easy. I find that is conducive to taking the good off-hand shot 🙂

Recent handheld example with slow film in fading light, where handheld experience was quite valuable:

 

[lorriman]

Aperture published a book called "The Snapshot" in 1974. Here are a couple of quotes from it:

Paul Strand "I have always taken the position that the word snapshot doesn't really mean anything. To talk about it you almost have to begin by asking: When is a snapshot not a snapshot? When is a photograph not a snapshot?"

Lee Friedlander "The idea that the snapshot would be thought of as a cult or movement is very tiresome to me and, I'm sure, confusing to others....The pleasures of good photographs are the pleasures of good photographs, whatever the particulars of their makeup".

These chaps brians are absolutely fried.

 

[NathanJD]

This seems to be another discussion about semantics.

What is a snapshot? Well, the question I would ask is what would define a snapshot – the picture it’s self or the intention of the photographer? And also can someone with technical knowledge produce a ‘snapshot’? Would you need to ask him if he intended to take a snapshot? If so is a snapshot a concept or a state of mind?

The way I feel about it is that my mother takes snapshots because she has no knowledge of the technicalities of photography and her photos of a people in their environment involve someone looking at the camera very far away smack in the middle of a picture of a scene. My partner’s parents take snapshots when they take a portrait of someone again in the middle of the frame in a landscape orientation when what is to either side of the subject is of no consequence, then blow this up and put it on their mantle piece.

Is it to do with a lack of technical knowledge, not so much breaking the rules just because you can but because you don’t see the downfalls of an image and consider it a ‘good photo’ nonetheless?

I don’t feel that any picture I take now I consider myself a student of photography could be a snapshot because I unintentionally consider many variables when photographing something/someone before pressing the shutter button. If I didn’t then I would be intending to take a snapshot so in fact it could not be a snapshot in the first place.

After all of this is said then, can a snapshot be art? Why not? A white wall can be, if for example it’s a wall inside the British museum, being an architectural marvel or a 300 year old whitewashed cottage in rural England. Art is how something man made makes you feel.

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

In response to the OP, I don't recall any particular discussion on RFF about snapshot as art, but I'm sure it's come up a number of times. I did a quick search and didn't find any threads exactly on point.

That said, with the success of Eggleston, Parr, and many others (I particularly like Jeff Mermelstein and I notice that Anna Fox has a new book out), the snapshot aesthetic in photography is well established.

Share your thoughts if you care to.

 

[lawrence]

These chaps brians are absolutely fried.

And they taste delicious 😉

 

[DNG]

Ha, ha. Fun ride.

Courtesy, too.

LOL.....great "Snapshot" 😀