A snapshot, to me and likely most of us, is a casual or incidental photo taken spontaneously, without deliberate forethought and often without or very minimal post-processing, usually capturing a moment in time of personal interest and with a lighter view of things.
Naturally, the subjects of such shots, more often than not, would tend to pertain to kids, family, pets, vacations, really, anything physically or emotionally close to the photographer, but don't have to be to be considered snapshots.
The main and most reasonable objection to the merit of the genre is the fact that it lends itself all too easily to a perception of clichée. In other words, the choice of subject along with a particular stance to it, should result in an image of particular and universal appeal, as opposed to one of general and predominantly personal value, if it is to be regarded as an artistic contribution to what is there already.
A snapshot meeting or exceeding these criteria, can and should, IMO, be considered a classic genre of photography, even if taken with a 1950's Brownie box camera. ;-)
A snapshot meeting or exceeding these criteria, can and should, IMO, be considered a classic genre of photography, even if taken with a 1950's Brownie box camera. ;-)
"Are there infinite criterias to be exceeded or is it just our memory which fail us?" [Glimpses quoting Himself]
A snapshot meeting or exceeding these criteria, can and should, IMO, be considered a classic genre of photography, even if taken with a 1950's Brownie box camera. ;-)
"Are there infinite criterias to be exceeded or is it just our memory which fail us?" [Glimpses quoting Himself]
What I mean, glimpses, is that depite having some sort of a definition, we still have to engage our own faculties. Nothing is etched in stone, and I hope that those who are sincere in their approach are alive with this fact.
Details: Your subject should be placed, seated, or lying stably, with a feeling of calm to the shot.
Where does it say that if it was a snapshot or a staged shot that it wouldn't work. If you don't want to look at pictures of cats, dogs, flowers, tombstones, sunsets, insects, etc you don't have to.
Just submit your photo and you don't even have to vote ,or comment. People that complain about voting can just come back in a weeks time and get their results. No one is forcing you to vote.
If you want more then "good job -"10" , "nice snapshot", "funny", etc as a comment. Then maybe giving comments to others as you would like to receive them would help.
my photo this week could be considered a snapshot by some but honest truth it was thought out and staged but I have one big flaw in the photo. Something I may try to correct later on.
i know this was a bit ago in the post. however, the fact that langdon and drew have two of the top rated pictures is only because back in the begining of the site people generally scored pictures higher. also there were so few of us around then, and neither has submited in a long time.
also along the same lines about complaining about snapshots. one can clearly see a huge difference in the overall quality of top pictures every week when compared to the start of the site. some of the recent pictures like freestyler and smily eyes would have been close to a 10 if they were submited at the start of the site.
from a person who's been here a while i think that snapshots and pictures in general have greatly improved.
If you find an image with some glaring technical problems, then it shouldn't be too hard to offer constructive suggestions on how to improve on it... If we all spent half as much time telling the folks that entered snapshots how to improve as we do ranting in the Current Challenge section of the forums, we wouldn't have many snapshooters left after a couple of weeks.
Here's a little side challenge for us all... However many posts we've made this week about snapshots, that's how many snapshots on which we should put fairly indepth comments with suggestions for improvement. I think I owe about 6 or 7...
My submission for resting was a good example of a snapshot, I submitted at the last minute because I didn't have any other good submission. I liked the way the man was sitting on the bench and the colors surrounding him and the fish in the far corner. My problem was that I was very embarressed of snapping a complete stranger. I felt very intrusive, so I snapped and ran! I should have rather have taken a boat or sea photo!
A snapshot, to me and likely most of us, is a casual or incidental photo taken spontaneously, without deliberate forethought and often without or very minimal post-processing, usually capturing a moment in time of personal interest and with a lighter view of things.
To this definition, I'd like to add that the eye of an experienced photographer is more likely to capture a moment while spontaneously factoring in previously proceduralised skills, like framing, composition, lighting and so on. Such a photographer is more likely to produce a higher quality of snapshot than the mere casual point-and-shooter.
(To Zeusen, one who is of a philosophical bent) Does the existence of prior learning invalidate your definition of snapshot in the case of professionals? That is, the lack of "deliberate forethought" is made up by procedural skills, and therefore, professionals cannot, by definition, take snapshots.
...(To Zeusen, one who is of a philosophical bent) Does the existence of prior learning invalidate your definition of snapshot in the case of professionals? That is, the lack of "deliberate forethought" is made up by procedural skills, and therefore, professionals cannot, by definition, take snapshots.
I can't say how you would define a professional photographer. If you mean a commercial photographer, he may find it harder than some. An experienced photographer or a less experienced one with a breath for life may, IMO, have both an interest and the opportunity to land a good snapshot now and then.
Why should procedural skills interfere with tackling this genre? I am hoping, of course, that anyone does what pleases him/her, and that an artist does what he loves best.
And lastly, you must have never taken math. The median of 1 to 10 is 5. Ever heard of the Bell curve? and I think you only use 1-5 anyway. Think of rating this way. A 5 is what the average person can shoot. Does that make sense?
Technically, the median value, if looking at the discrete singular values of 1-10, the median is both 5 and 6, with a mean of 5.5. That is, there are 4 values below 5 (1-4) and 4 values above 6 (7-10), thus there is no "average" rating one can assign -- a 5 is "below average" and a 6 is "above average." Now if we were allowed to give a photo a "0" rating, then the mean would indeed be 5.
I am starting to think that some (not all) people that frequent this site are just habitual wingers. Between the “why am I only getting fives” set of people, the ‘how dare you criticize my American flag picture” and now this snapshot discussion I am starting to wonder why these people waste time here and don’t just go an find another site. I’m sure there is a site out there that will
1. Appreciates your outstanding skills as a photographer.
2. Will always recognize that your picture is of superior quality than the pictures you think are of a poor quality and vote accordingly.
3. Always recognize that a picture of an American flag no mater how boring, bad or just plainly been flogged to death is always worth a 10.
4. Agrees with you that anyone that gives a low score (not me J) for an American flag picture is an anti American, non-patriotic, freedom-hating terrorist that wants to do you harm.
5. Anyone that submits a “snapshot” shall be dragged up before the shopshot police and given the cat o nine tails for having wasted your time during the voting process.
6. Finally this new site should be flexible enough to change their voting system every week as to allow everyone to have high scores all the time.
