Snapper or Photographer?

 

A friend recently raised the following question: "What is the difference between a Snapper and a Photographer?". I think we got the answer pretty well sorted out in the discussion. But a recent video I stumbled across puts it even better than we did.

A snapper is looking for motives.
A photographer is looking for photos.

I always expressed the opinion that a photographic picture must tell a story, convey a feeling, or show something interesting in visual form. A photography, I think, needs to be about something. What I mean is that you can just lift your camera to your eye and shoot the scene in front of you, or you can think about what makes the scene interesting and concentrate on that aspect. So, this first goal is to make an image that shows something as clear and attractive as possible, and leave out the distractions.

But I learned over time that this is only the start. There can be more. You can show an interesting subject visually appealing or not. But you can even make the artistic visual elements the prominent feature of your image. Going beyond this, the subject can become unimportant, or there might not even be one. The picture is then abstract, visual art only. 

This kind of photography is more art than photography for me. I never went that far. But why not? There is always something new to learn and to try.

I cannot tell you more about this kind of artful photography. And I shouldn't. I am not qualified enough for this, being more of a technical guy. But you will recognize the goals of a photographer immediately in its images. If the image is more about color, lines, textures, structures, than about subjects, the photographer has left the starting viewpoint as I expressed it in the beginning. 

The resulting images may now be uninteresting for the casual viewers that we usually have. They are for another audience. This is not what you may be after. 

It could be, however, that we can combine both worlds and show images that are visually artistic as well as interesting.