At what point did a photo become a "capture"

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Is there some difference or is the word "capture" just pretentious twaddle?
 
Welcome to the ba5tardisation of the English language; it knows no bounds, has wrongness on so many levels, but is deemed acceptable as it's not PC to decry anyone as being wrong any more - they're just different!

I think that sums up where I stand on the question posed.....:D
 
Capture a moment in time :shrug:
 
PJ S said:
Welcome to the ba5tardisation of the English language; it knows no bounds, has wrongness on so many levels, but is deemed acceptable as it's not PC to decry anyone as being wrong any more - they're just different!

I think that sums up where I stand on the question posed.....:D
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Would you feel better if I said you're wrong ;)
 
I'm wrong on occasion, and happy to admit it - I'm also different, but that doesn't make me wrong!
So I'll feel neither worse nor better, if you said I was wrong - just indifferent. :lol:
 
You understood "Capture" in this context without any trouble as would most people.

Some second language people might well be confused by our use of shot, snap or exposure... all of which have other meanings, or translations.
 
I'm not sure where I stand on "capture" yet. I'm still trying to adjust to people shouting "BOOM!" every time they press the shutter release. I'm not doing too well on this, so far.

One that I'm more puzzled by is that I used to "take" photos. I've seen a lot of well known togs describe themselves as "making" photos. Is this a fad, the "pwn" of your "own", or will I now have to start practising in the mirror?
 
SimonH said:
I'm not sure where I stand on "capture" yet. I'm still trying to adjust to people shouting "BOOM!" every time they press the shutter release. I'm not doing too well on this, so far.

One that I'm more puzzled by is that I used to "take" photos. I've seen a lot of well known togs describe themselves as "making" photos. Is this a fad, the "pwn" of your "own", or will I now have to start practising in the mirror?
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we are not alone "Artists" make marks they don't paint.
 
It's only been in use in this context for donkey's years ... hardly new.
 
SimonH said:
One that I'm more puzzled by is that I used to "take" photos. I've seen a lot of well known togs describe themselves as "making" photos. Is this a fad, the "pwn" of your "own", or will I now have to start practising in the mirror?
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“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ― Ansel Adams :)
 
Ed Sutton said:
“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ― Ansel Adams :)
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He was always the maverick :)

The original expression was shared with sketching...
To "Take a Likeness"
 
Ed Sutton said:
“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ― Ansel Adams :)
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So Ansel Adams captured those moments he made :D Sorted! ...as it were....

Personally I don't think it is such a bad word [capture], it has been used in relation to art and photography for longer than most of us have been alive. Think of comments such as 'in his portrait in oils, he captured the twinkle of Uncle Bob's eye', You can say 'he photographed the twinkle in Uncle Bob's eye' but it sounds strangely clunky and cumbersome and doesn't fully make the point in the way 'captured' does.

It is just my opinion, but I think there are far worse words bandied around in photography ;)
 
PJ S said:
Welcome to the ba5tardisation of the English language; it knows no bounds, has wrongness on so many levels, but is deemed acceptable as it's not PC to decry anyone as being wrong any more - they're just different!

I think that sums up where I stand on the question posed.....:D
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How is using the word capture *******isation of the English language? We've often used verbs as nouns.. always have.

As Stephen Fry is more eloquent than I, I'll let him explain...

Stephen Fry said:
The worst of this sorry bunch of semi-educated losers are those who seem to glory in being irritated by nouns becoming verbs. How dense and deaf to language development do you have to be? If you don’t like nouns becoming verbs, then for heaven’s sake avoid Shakespeare who made a doing-word out of a thing-word every chance he got. He TABLED the motion and CHAIRED the meeting in which nouns were made verbs. New examples from our time might take some getting used to: ‘He actioned it that day’ for instance might strike some as a verbing too far, but we have been sanctioning, envisioning, propositioning and stationing for a long time, so why not ‘action’? ‘Because it’s ugly,’ whinge the pedants. It’s only ugly because it’s new and you don’t like it. Ugly in the way Picasso, Stravinsky and Eliot were once thought ugly and before them Monet, Mahler and Baudelaire. Pedants will also claim, with what I am sure is eye-popping insincerity and shameless disingenuousness, that their fight is only for ‘clarity’. This is all very well, but there is no doubt what ‘Five items or less’ means, just as only a dolt can’t tell from the context and from the age and education of the speaker, whether ‘disinterested’ is used in the ‘proper’ sense of non-partisan, or in the ‘improper’ sense of uninterested. No, the claim to be defending language for the sake of clarity almost never, ever holds water. Nor does the idea that following grammatical rules in language demonstrates clarity of thought and intelligence of mind. Having said this, I admit that if you want to communicate well for the sake of passing an exam or job interview, then it is obvious that wildly original and excessively heterodox language could land you in the soup. I think what offends examiners and employers when confronted with extremely informal, unpunctuated and haywire language is the implication of not caring that underlies it. You slip into a suit for an interview and you dress your language up too. You can wear what you like linguistically or sartorially when you’re at home or with friends, but most people accept the need to smarten up under some circumstances – it’s only considerate. But that is an issue of fitness, of suitability, it has nothing to do with correctness. There no right language or wrong language any more than are right or wrong clothes. Context, convention and circumstance are all.
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So yes... it's a capture, because the natural etymological shifting of language's sands dictates that it is so.
 
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Exactly. Language is ever changing/evolving. Presumably those who don't like the changes are stuck at a point in time that they think is the time when language was correct to them and strictly adhere to the words and phrases used in that time.

Sounds quite tough to stick to...
 
ernesto said:
Exactly. Language is ever changing/evolving. Presumably those who don't like the changes are stuck at a point in time that they think is the time when language was correct to them and strictly adhere to the words and phrases used in that time.
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Pointless endeavour... as at some point, you'll die.. and it will still move on when you're dead. :) You may as well yell "Go away" at the tide.
 
As said the word capture has been used to describe photographs/art for longer than any of us have been alive. (Apart from Dave Kiddle cos' he's really old!!!!)

I use it from time to time as a lot of photo's have captured a moment that often will never be repeated.

As words go it's a nice one. :)
 
I tend to say 'nice capture' - If somebody has managed to photograph something that required perfect split second timing or a very rare sight that may never happen again.

I'm not saying that's right or even that it makes sense but it's praise getting 'the capture' rather than praise for the image quality or the composition or the light etc etc
 
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Pookeyhead said:
How is using the word capture *******isation of the English language? We've often used verbs as nouns.. always have.
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Depends solely upon the context the word is used.
I've read the thread title as substituting the "a photo" (as in, I've just taken a photo) with "a capture".
Didn't appreciate it was offered up for discussion in the more general usage of the word, or its synonym "caught".
 
I'm not a great fan of the term "capture". I rather prefer the term "exposing the world to myself".

Unfortunately the judge didn't like either term....
 
Presumaby Stephen Fry hasn't heard of paragraphs either, rather a large chunk of text :lol: As regards capture, probably happened at the same time as a photo became an image ;)
 
Ohhh.. capture as a noun! I didn't see that "a" in the title.

Possibly there is influence/leakage from the technology side, where a "capture rate" is probably a legitimate term.

I'm irritated by my niece asking me to inbox her. I insist on emailing her instead. Times, they are a-changing. Innit.
 
I use the word 'capture' to mean a photograph or to photograph (as a verb). I often think of 'capture' as in 'capture of light' as well as 'capture of the moment, capture the twinkle in the eye' etc.

Looking in some old dictionaries at home, the earliest use of the word in what you could say is in this sense was in my Collins (1st edition was 1979 - my edition 1986) where it uses the word in the sense of an artist capturing a likeness. All my earlier dictionaries only used the word in terms of 'seizing'.

There are plenty of online dictionaries which give definitions of capture that relate to photography and art - particularly in the sense of 'image capture'.

When photography technology changed and became 'digital', a whole new terminology was also required and 'capture' is very much part of that terminology in the sense of frame-grabbing.
 
Usually I say "taken by me on *such a date*" when I show my photos on the interweb. But personally I can't see the problem with using the word "capture" when it comes to photography, as basically it's the art of having caught a moment in time.
 
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artyman said:
Presumaby Stephen Fry hasn't heard of paragraphs either, rather a large chunk of text :lol: As regards capture, probably happened at the same time as a photo became an image ;)
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That's my copying and pasting.. not his writing :)

The term capture has been floating around photography meaning the capturing of light since day one. It's only natural it would shift from a verb to a noun, because that's what always happens to the English language. It became more widely used since digital became popular. I don't recall hearing it very much in the film days... although terms such as "You've captured this well" have always been around. Once camera gave the ability to instantly display what they'd taken, I think it became more widespread.


I rarely use it. Not because I have some grammatical objection to it. I just think it sounds stupid.
 
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I hate it, butI also hate 'impact' when we mean affect or effect. But I know I'm yelling at the tide.
 
Just another example of the interchangeability of nouns and verbs. English as always done this for as long as we've been speaking English. I have no idea why people object to it. We use many words as verbs now, that 100 years ago, people would have objected to. Those same kinds of people are objecting to calling something "a capture", yet they'd happily use other phrasal verbs that have been around longer than they have :)
 
Its part of the pseudo professional language made up by gear whores and photo snobs on fora to make themselves feel superior. Like calling lenses glass. ;)
 
menthel said:
Its part of the pseudo professional language made up by gear whores and photo snobs on fora to make themselves feel superior. Like calling lenses glass. ;)
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Gear whores and photo snobs??

Other professions and trades have their own words that specifically relate to their trade. A spark ( electrician) may call a bulb a lamp!! A joiner calling his drill a gun!! Does that phrase then apply to them?
 
tonester said:
Gear whores and photo snobs??

Other professions and trades have their own words that specifically relate to their trade. A spark ( electrician) may call a bulb a lamp!! A joiner calling his drill a gun!! Does that phrase then apply to them?
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They may do but most professional photographers probably don't use the word. Look at the reaction from some when they see the word "tog" used! ;)
 
tonester said:
Gear whores and photo snobs??

Other professions and trades have their own words that specifically relate to their trade. A spark ( electrician) may call a bulb a lamp!! A joiner calling his drill a gun!! Does that phrase then apply to them?
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Its just another way of applying sudo technical language to try lift the user of the jargon above the average person. A drill is a drill not a gun, a lens contains glass but is not "glass". Lamp actually is a technical term, distinct from "a lamp" but again using it in out side ones peer group would be trying to make the user feel superior.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Its just another way of applying sudo technical language to try lift the user of the jargon above the average person. A drill is a drill not a gun, a lens contains glass but is not "glass". Lamp actually is a technical term, distinct from "a lamp" but again using it in out side ones peer group would be trying to make the user feel superior.
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I personally don't use the word in question, but surely on a forum where "jargon" is aplenty then it would be more acceptable? And within the aforementioned peer group without trying to make anyone feel inferior?
 
Thats fine if everyone involved is in the peer group, but this forum preports to open an welcoming to new comers, and generally is, but excessive jargon presents an unnecessary obstacle. Some jargon is required, F-stop, ISO etc these are terms that one has to know to use the equipment effectively
 
menthel said:
They may do but most professional photographers probably don't use the word. Look at the reaction from some when they see the word "tog" used! ;)
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Granted.

Carpenter, joiner, chippy!
Police officer copper, bobby,
Electrician, spark,
Chef, cook
Lawyer brief


Etc etc...............

Shortened or alternative words for loads of different professions doesn't change what they do.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Thats fine if everyone involved is in the peer group, but this forum preports to open an welcoming to new comers, and generally is, but excessive jargon presents an unnecessary obstacle. Some jargon is required, F-stop, ISO etc these are terms that one has to know to use the equipment effectively
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But surely it would benefit to understand the word capture in the context it's being used also, alongside the essential jargon?
 
What benefit and who? It would allow the neophyte to converse with the established forum users but will that help them take/make pictures?

Have you ever seen the Plain English Campaign? The idea is to avoid using unnecessarily complex language when dealing with the public. Some jargon is necessary, precipitation from the wiki example, F-Stop describes a complex mathematical formula in a simple manner. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with capture I wouldn't really even call it jargon, as has been pointed out above, its been in common usage since before photography.
 
steveo_mcg said:
What benefit and who? It would allow the neophyte to converse with the established forum users but will that help them take/make pictures?

Have you ever seen the Plain English Campaign? The idea is to avoid using unnecessarily complex language when dealing with the public. Some jargon is necessary, precipitation from the wiki example, F-Stop describes a complex mathematical formula in a simple manner. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with capture I wouldn't really even call it jargon, as has been pointed out above, its been in common usage since before photography.
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I do agree with you, but it just seems to me to be an acceptable term to describe a photograph. Or as my first post on this thread said capture a moment. Some people see things different and would possible walk past a possible capture of a moment.... So in that instance to describe it as capture would be acceptable.:-) Anyway chaps I'm off for my annual review with my gaffer ( boss) lol ill keep an eye on this thread though.
 
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