What is a Snapshot

[realspeed]

On another site I belong to they have a monthly snapshot competition between members. The guy running it admits he knows nothing about photography. So he insists no alterations to the photos but to post as taken.
This led me to think "What is a snapshot"? the obvious answer is a quick photo taken without much thoughts and no editing. This is fine on the surface.

BUT with digital cameras especially DSLR cameras they can be preset to say for example a fisheye setting. Ok then is it a "Snapshot"or not? even with the intention just to take fisheye type photos

trying to explain to him an in-camera setting can still be a "Snapshot" is not understood.

I was wondering what members here undersand what a "Snapshot" photo actually is ?

 

[ancient_mariner]

I consider a snapshot to be an image taken without thought or intention - different from a grabbed image that was taken as a scene unfolded. If people are submitting carefully produced and selected work (without post processing) then I'd say they aren't snapshots.

 

[Sky]

I consider a snapshot to be an image taken without thought or intention - different from a grabbed image that was taken as a scene unfolded.

This. Most eloquently put sir - sums it up perfectly for me.

 

[Dave Canon]

Presumably, those using Raw are allowed a little editing as those who use JPEG have lots of automatic camera processing.

Dave

 

[Major Eazy]

On another site I belong to they have a monthly snapshot competition between members. The guy running it admits he knows nothing about photography. So he insists no alterations to the photos but to post as taken.
This led me to think "What is a snapshot"? the obvious answer is a quick photo taken without much thoughts and no editing. This is fine on the surface.

BUT with digital cameras especially DSLR cameras they can be preset to say for example a fisheye setting. Ok then is it a "Snapshot"or not? even with the intention just to take fisheye type photos

trying to explain to him an in-camera setting can still be a "Snapshot" is not understood.

I was wondering what members here undersand what a "Snapshot" photo actually is ?

It does not matter if there is automatic editing going on inside the camera, done by the computer chip inside.

A snapshot is a quick photo, without thinking about framing. You're not bothered with rearranging your friends in order of height, or asking a group of four guys to stand up behind a group of three guys who knee down in front. Or a photo of your car but don't care for the fact that the lamp-pole behind the car is in the way, result in the photo of your car looking like it's a Martian War Machine from H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. You're not bothered with trying to make the photo look nice, mostly because there's no time for it.

A snapshot is when you get out your camera, just focus and shoot, and get on with it, as if you behaved like a non-photographer. Just click! Just grab a photo.

Surely that even with one of those old Polaroid cameras, one of those 1000 models that takes SX-7 film, I remember they used to have a lighten/darken adjustment knob on it, you turn it so you could get a lighten or a darken photo, if left on setting another than zero, it counts as editing? Sometimes I may have left it on the wrong setting, and just grabbed a quick photo of my friend to remember that good times with my friend. I wanted a snapshot, but if the Polaroid's episode adjustment knob was left at anything other than zero, nobody told me "Sorry but that don't count as a snapshot!"

Nowadays people will take out their mobile phones and take a quick photo of their friends, they just want a snapshot for Facebook or anything, yet those mobile phones do some form of in-camera editing. If you try to tell them that since their phone does in-camera editing, it does not count as a snapshot, they would tell you they don't care. It's just a word.

 

[justpix]

Hi, today snapshot is mostly used as an excuse (I couldn't do it better) or as a serious verdict (when referring to the work of a professional photographer),
there was a time when taking a snapshot was impossible with the large format cameras requiring many seconds of exposure time.

Taking snapshots (called Momentaufnahme) were one of Oskar Barnack's design goals for the Leica by Leitz in the early 1920s.

 

[Phil V]

I consider a snapshot to be an image taken without thought or intention - different from a grabbed image that was taken as a scene unfolded. If people are submitting carefully produced and selected work (without post processing) then I'd say they aren't snapshots.

This^
The upshot of which is that the intent of the monthly ‘snapshot’ competition is that it’s not for ‘photographers’.

 

[Fuji Dave]

As I`m not great with words I will do it with two images.

I always loved taking images of Sam singing, 1st one to me was just a snapshot of him singing with the X-T2 + XF90mm f2. I like it but something was missing. Taken on August 30th 2018.


Sam by Dave, on Flickr


This shot with the X-T3 + XF90mm, this shot of Sam was taken October 3rd 2018. Instead of just getting up and taking the shot, I actually had a look at different angles I could take it at without getting a messy BG and as soon as I did look through the viewfinder I thought That`s the shot I want. So to me because I took the time not to rush and have a look/think at different angles made me think you will get a better image if you stop and think.


Sam by Dave, on Flickr

 

[apodo]

This led me to think "What is a snapshot"? the obvious answer is a quick photo taken without much thoughts and no editing.

For me it is seeing something of which you want to take a shot, maybe a quick look to get the best angle, and then snapping it. Quick and without an extra effort. The end.

Your are in the pub and want to get quick shot of your friends, so you take out your phone. One or two of them are only half in the frame so you tell them to move in closer.

Your great aunt wants to get a shot of the amazing birthday cake you baked for their second-cousin twice-removed's great niece's fifth birthday party, so they keep getting closer with their camera until it fills the frame.

You see something in a shop window, you take out your phone, hold it at an angle to make an interesting shot, then keep walking.

Absolutely a snapshot is intentional, it involves deliberate judgement in deciding what you want to snap and finding a way to do it. But it lacks planning, it lacks manipulation or staging beyond what is necessary to snap that shot, it does not involve editing what comes out of the camera. It is something that happens quickly in the moment. No prior thought, no subsequent thought. See thing, position, snap.

To me using in-camera effects to create a fisheye effect, or make something black and white, or slow the shutter to introduce motion blur is a creative decision. You are not just snapping something but considering what you can create. You are not snapping an object or scene but shooting a vision. You are thinking beyond "I want a shot of this" to "I want to create an image."

A snapshot is not a technical capability, it is a way of using photography. It does not matter what modern digital cameras can do.

 

[woof woof]

Googling the term tells us it was originally a hunting term, a snap shot being a shot which was quickly aimed and taken as the target appeared, rather than taking deliberate aim at a subject clearly seen and in circumstances that allow you to take your time. So maybe shooting at a creature as it breaks cover rather than taking aim at a buffalo who's just been stood there for ages.

These days with lightening fast focus systems and face/eye detect many pictures could I suppose also be classed as snap shots if you see your subject, point the camera and press the button quickly. Street photography, social shooting and even wildlife shots I suppose. I don't think processing has anything to do with it and in fact if someone wants to spend all week in PS on a snap shot that seems perfectly valid to me.

I think for many people a snap shot is a shot taken by someone with a point and shoot and no idea what they're doing but I don't agree with that and I prefer to go back to the original hunting term. You've got your camera, the subject or the moment appears, you have very limited time and you quickly take the shot.

 

[Nod]

Opportunistic grab shot.