Those who take and those who make

[MattKing]

I don't know, it's not worth pursuing, I'm just glad you didn't say........"pre-visualizing".

Sometimes I’m in a Minor White mood, and sometimes Ansel Adams is my go to!

 

[CMoore]

No. No one "builds" photos. There's just no comparison between building and photographing. Building is genuinely complex and tends to involve many different people with completely different skills.

Maybe building in a way similar to making something out of Lego....

These types of threads always make me chuckle. I am not just picking on photography, people of all Jobs/Hobbies seem to fall prey to embellishment.

Reminds me of the old joke.....
Last night i dreamed i was an angel, exalted in the harmony and bliss and the glory of heaven.
So you dreamed you were dead.......

 

[Don_ih]

Well, there's a level of stupidity involved in picking some word to mean what a straightforward word already means. It's that bad advice you get in English literature classes to "spice-up" your writing by using a thesaurus. So, instead of "I take photos" say, uh, "I build photos" because, you know, they're synonyms. But they're not. It's fine if it's an analogical use of the word "build" - but people will take it literally, because it's not long before you go ahead and say that's what it literally means, anyway.

Well, it was an analogical use of the word "take" in the first place. What is really happening is "making".

Let's adopt "camera" as a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. "Do you camera?" "Oh, yes. I camera camerically. With my camera. Do you?" "No, I build." "Oh, what do you build?" "Camerical things. Lots of them. I can end up with 1200 cameras on my sd card by the end of the day."

 

[BrianShaw]

Oh,..

 

[snusmumriken]

For centuries the Turin Shroud was claimed to have been taken, but was discredited in the 20th century because it turned out it was made.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I per-visualizing, however the final prints may be quite different from the per-visualization. As I print negatives, I sometimes notice things that put the process in a different direction.

 

[Daniela]

No. No one "builds" photos. There's just no comparison between building and photographing. Building is genuinely complex and tends to involve many different people with completely different skills.

So I guess hunting. fishing and gathering wouldn't fly with you either

 

[munz6869]

For ages I've been using the term "snapping". This has elicited responses such as "you don't 'snap' a large format photograph, Marc!", but that only makes me want to use the phrase more - it seems friendly, embedded in photographic social vernacular but possibly without pretension - I really want everyone to be as enthused about photography as I am (well, maybe not 'that' enthused), and enjoy what I do and feel a part of it too. Making and taking and creating seem too individual to me, when the subject/camera & film manufacturers/weather/chance all always play such a significant part in the snap as well...

Marc!

 

[Don_ih]

So I guess hunting. fishing and gathering wouldn't fly with you either

Used analogically, they're fine. I was emphasizing the silliness of bothering to do so.

 

[Pioneer]

I would like to think I make my photographs but the truth is I take whatever the camera gives me. Some days that is steak and some day it is not.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

For ages I've been using the term "snapping". This has elicited responses such as "you don't 'snap' a large format photograph, Marc!", but that only makes me want to use the phrase more - it seems friendly, embedded in photographic social vernacular but possibly without pretension - I really want everyone to be as enthused about photography as I am (well, maybe not 'that' enthused), and enjoy what I do and feel a part of it too. Making and taking and creating seem too individual to me, when the subject/camera & film manufacturers/weather/chance all always play such a significant part in the snap as well...

Marc!

I agree. It's pretentious to say, "I'm going out to make (or build) photographs." Shoot, snap, or take. That seems more natural. PS: I like your location in your avatar box. How did you spell that upsidedown?

 

[Vaughn]

Language is communication. If 'snapping' or 'shooting' defines and communicates best how one works, then use it. If making photographs best defines and communicates how one works, then use 'make'.

Some personality types think that words only have a limited use and meaning. Some personality types think words are more fluid in their meanings and use. Both are right...just different approaches of using language.

I construct the image on the GG of my view camera. I build it by examining the light reflecting off what is in front of the camera and manipulating it using the attributes of the camera/lens (focal length, swings, tilts, DoF. etc), and then transferring the build onto film in such a way that I can use the resulting negative as a tool to make/construct the print.

edit to add...in others words; I photograph and make prints (hand-made alt prints, so I think "make" is appropriate).

 

[Sirius Glass]

Snapping is for snapshots not photographs. I personally eschew using pretentious terms like making photographs.

 

[Chuck_P]

I agree. It's pretentious to say, "I'm going out to make (or build) photographs.".......................

Said in jest.......................well, your're more than welcome to come snap a picture of a photograph I made.

 

[Milpool]

Snapping is for snapshots not photographs. I personally eschew using pretentious terms like making photographs.

 

[BrianShaw]

Snapping is for snapshots not photographs. I personally eschew using pretentious terms like making photographs.

Sounds like you eschew unpretentious terms also.

I sometimes use the term "snapping pictures" when people ask what I'm doing as it tends to get rid of them fast. Seems like they immediately dismiss me as a casual, harmless, nobody rather than a photographer. Shortens the conversation so I can get on with making photographs.

 

[Vaughn]

Sounds like you eschew unpretentious terms also.

I sometimes use the term "snapping pictures" when people ask what I'm doing as it tends to get rid of them fast. Seems like they immediately dismiss me as a casual, harmless, nobody rather than a photographer. Shortens the conversation so I can get on with making photographs.

Hard to get away with "Just snapping pictures" when using a classy-looking 100+ year old 5x7. They won't believe you. There is a point where feigned modesty starts to sound a bit pretentious.

 

[cliveh]

Linguistic terminology is a problem on APUG, particularly between American and English. Some months ago, I posted a thread about being photogenic and it seems in the USA it means being beautiful, but in the UK, it refers to looking good in photographs. My OP is obviously doomed to misunderstanding, as pointed out by Don_ih.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Does anyone actually say to their family, "I'm going out to build (make) some pictures?" Who talks like that? Don't you just say, "I'm going out to shoot (or take) some pictures?" I mean, you can still think you're going out to "build" them. But if you use that word, your kids are going to think you're kind of weird.

 

[snusmumriken]

Linguistic terminology is a problem on APUG, particularly between American and English. Some months ago, I posted a thread about being photogenic and it seems in the USA it means being beautiful, but in the UK, it refers to looking good in photographs. My OP is obviously doomed to misunderstanding, as pointed out by Don_ih.

The question you pose in the OP seems plain enough to me, and you did say that you don't see it as a binary choice. To my way of thinking, it depends how much of the creativity happens post-capture (oh hell, there's another word, although I see @jeffreyg has already used it). Some photographers have seen the capture as the creative bit, and the darkroom stuff as a dull craft which they may even assign to others. Other photographers make magic in the darkroom out of quite pedestrian negatives, which may not even be their own. I like to see both ways.

But you asked how we see ourselves. I am very much a hunter by temperament, so 'taking' (and later selecting the best of my efforts) is my thing, and I can't claim ever to engage with my subjects and thus create the opportunities. As others have argued, cutting an image out of space and time is a creative process. In the darkroom I am competent but not skilled and definitely un-creative.

 

[GregY]

Linguistic terminology is a problem on APUG, particularly between American and English. Some months ago, I posted a thread about being photogenic and it seems in the USA it means being beautiful, but in the UK, it refers to looking good in photographs. My OP is obviously doomed to misunderstanding, as pointed out by Don_ih.

In Canada as well photogenic still means... looking good in photos.
People always have the option of interpreting words precisely or loosely.....

 

[Vaughn]

Does anyone actually say to their family, "I'm going out to build (make) some pictures?" Who talks like that? Don't you just say, "I'm going out to shoot (or take) some pictures?" I mean, you can still think you're going out to "build" them. But if you use that word, your kids are going to think you're kind of weird.

Not my kids...or at least they would think I'm being no more weird than usual. Do you really think you are 'normal'? I am sorry, but you are just as weird as the rest of us here.

But no, I would not say that I was going out to 'take, make, or build' some pictures. I would say what I was actually going to do..."I am off to photograph." Or perhaps "I'm going to check out the light. "...(which my boys would understand even if I did not take a camera.)

 

[BrianShaw]

Hard to get away with "Just snapping pictures" when using a classy-looking 100+ year old 5x7. They won't believe you. There is a point where feigned modesty starts to sound a bit pretentious.

Try it; you'll likely be surprised.

The opposite, I suppose, is when someone looks at our camera gear and assumes that we are professional because "it looks expensive". The last time that happened I explained that the equiment I was using hasn't been used professionally for 40 years. That gets rid of busybodies too, except those who feign that they know what they are talking about.

 

[Vaughn]

Try it; you'll likely be surprised.

The opposite, I suppose, is when someone looks at our camera gear and assumes that we are professional because "it looks expensive". The last time that happened I explained that the equiment I was using hasn't been used professionally for 40 years. That gets rid of busybodies too, except those who feign that they know what they are talking about.

I often get, "Do they still make film?" (No, I just like setting up an 11x14 camera for no reason... ) And I have been asked what I was surveying (8x10 set-up), what was I looking at thru my telescope, and if my 8x10 was a Hasselblad.

But I am the opposite, if folks can wait until I have finished the exposure(s), I invite them to put the darkcloth over their head and look at the image. Always fun to hear that "ooohhhhh..." when they finally see and comprehend the image on the GG. But for 95% of my time out with the camera, there is no one else around.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Sounds like you eschew unpretentious terms also.