an assignment for my photography class that required answering discussion questions. The questions were as such:

Which attributes do you think differentiate a snapshot from a photograph?

Do you think it is important to make distinction between a snapshot and a photograph? Why or why not?

Why do you think photography is important in your personal, cultural, and social lives?

Provide appropriate rationale to support your answers.

I think I became a little long-winded, but it really showed me just how in-tune I am when it came to my pictures. 

A snapshot, in my opinion, is something captured purely for the purpose of stopping time. Snapshots are completely candid; no posing or set-ups are utilized when snapshots are taken. When I think of snapshots, I imagine someone walking through the streets of an old city, with a camera around their neck. He or she sees something they feel has a perfect combination of angles, texture, and emotion, and quickly snaps the shutter before the opportunity has passed, and goes about their business. They continue their journey through the city, capturing classic shots that can never be recreated, and once they have finished, they have an amazing set of purely candid, raw shots that will both drive the minds of critics, and the hearts of the common into a new world where one would use their imagination to tell a short story pertaining to what they see in front of them. 

A photograph, on the other hand, still has the potential to be great storytellers as well. But these, I feel, are more strict and set up than a snapshot. With a photograph, the photographer starts his shooting with a plan in mind; he or she has a motive and a goal for what they want to accomplish in the shots they take. Now, just because these require more thought than a snapshot, doesn’t mean they’re any less effective. They just require a stereotypical checklist to achieve them. When I think of a photograph, I think of a family of four sitting in the grass, with their matching outfits and their two big dogs sitting on each side. The kids are sitting in their parents’ laps and everyone has a smile that one can tell when looking at the photograph that the photographer had to tell them to say, “cheese.” These types of shots are posed and structured. Everything has to be perfectly arranged and nothing can be out of place, otherwise, it won’t be proportional. The emotions aren’t genuine, but rather, simply put, an acting audition. You can imagine the photographer saying, “now tilt your head this way and look in each other’s eyes. Good. Now act like you’re laughing.” Instead of catching a child genuinely laughing at their father playing peek-a-boo, the smiles shown in these are more stale, and instruction-based. 

I think it is very important to distinguish one from the other. If someone wants to buy a snapshot, they want something they can hang in their grand room as a piece of fine art, whereas if someone wants to purchase a photograph, they want something they can put in a frame and place them on coffee tables or put into Christmas cards, and give wallet-sized versions to their family members. 

I feel photography is very important to all aspects of our lives. Things that we capture now, will change sooner than later. Kids will grow into adults, cities will grow and recede, and our environment in general will forever be changing. But one thing will always be true: if we capture things the way they are now, we will always have proof, a memory of what was, because pictures will be the only thing that stays the same, when everything and everyone else doesn’t.