Termin -al -ology

By the way, I have a few thoughts about the terminology question from Monday. But to begin with, I'll stipulate that terminology doesn't really matter and that we don't get to decide anyway. (Let's not let that question take over the comments.) Still, I think this is interesting.

I'm going to assert (provisionally, open to attack) that "taking pictures" is the plainest, least precious, least pretentious way to say what it is we're doing. But what struck me was that when a number of people suggest "making photographs" as an alternative, it is usually proposed as a sort of gentle synonym—a slightly tilted shade of meaning, a somewhat more fastidious way of saying essentially the same thing.

But "making photographs" is not a synonym for "taking pictures" at all, really. Taking pictures (shooting) and making photographs (creating something finished that other people can see using your shooting as the raw material) are the two different sides of the practice of photography, the two different spheres. The two sides of the same coin, the two ends of the same stick. This is clear to me because I started out in film with black-and-white, when the two things were vividly separated (you exposed film with your camera and you had exactly nothing visible—then you developed the film and at least proofed the negative in order to have something to look at). Now they're not so separated any more...in some ways, they've almost merged together.

Almost. One part is taking pictures; the other part is making photographs. Lots of people take pictures who never make photographs. Regardless of how evanescent or inconsequential it is, a photograph has to be a thing. A thing you can point to. A thing that is somewhere. Is it a photograph if no one can see it? Or if no one does? I don't think so. If no one can see it, it hasn't been made into a photograph yet. I have negatives that I think will make good photographs that I've never printed. Are they photographs? I'd argue that they aren't yet. When Ctein showed up in Madison with a box full of prints to show me, those are photographs. If someone "finishes" a JPEG and puts it up on Flickr, then it's a photograph. As long as it's just a RAW file you've assigned five stars to, it isn't quite a photograph, yet.

Seventy years ago, most photographs were black-and-white and were made using film, and the two parts, as I say, were very distinct...you took a picture with your camera, then you went and made it into a photograph (or had somebody else do it for you)...because if you didn't, not even you could see what it looked like. The image even after it was "taken" was still literally invisible (the latent image). Now, the lines are much more blurred. Now, nobody agrees on when it becomes a photograph or what it is once it becomes one...nobody agrees on what a photograph is any more.

This might be the very simplest form of the two parts of the practice of photography today:

Taking a picture

Now it's a photograph (noun)

Think of what's happening here, versus what could have happened. Ed could have looked at his picture and said "oh, that didn't turn out," and deleted it. In which case—not a photograph. Instead, he decided it was okay, and "published" it—just by showing it to his sister on the viewing screen of his phone, true, but still, he's decided it's worth sharing and has displayed it.

Deep down, those two different "parts" to what we do are still there—furtively, vestigially.

The traditional way to make a photograph is to print a picture, preferably well. Peter Turnley takes pictures all the time, as visitors to his Facebook page are aware. It's when he has his good friend Voja make a print of it and he signs it that he's made a photograph. Of course there are other ways to make a photograph—publish it in a magazine, newspaper, or book, or online.

Some people just "take pictures." Other people only take pictures in order to make photographs. Lots of people, of course, do both.

Personally I think I've swung from one extreme to the other. I used to love to do darkroom work and make "final," finished prints. I even took a job as a framer and experimented with framing methods so I could learn how to present my prints. Now I mainly take pictures and don't often make photographs. What this has left me with is a mass of raw material that I intend to make photographs out of, some day. (I'd better be careful, because these plans in my head could die there, when I kick off. Then nobody will ever be able to see what I see or know what I intended.)

Do you see the distinction? Think it's useful? Now that a) cameras give you something to view and a way to view it instantly, and b) that relatively few people (fewer all the time) consider "making prints" as a necessary or even desirable end-point of photographic process—of "doing" photography—I wonder how many people today still make the mental distinction between taking and making. If you accept that they're very different things.

In Madison last Saturday, Ctein shows me a photograph he made.

And, which is more important to you? Do you do both? Do you do both equally? Or do you just, well, take pictures?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dennis Fallon: "I'm not sure I completely buy into the application of yesterday's terminology. In the past, you could make a picture and then never show it to anyone. Today, you can take a picture and have it on Facebook without a second thought. All too often, without a second thought. So the act of sharing or publishing isn't the same thing as the making of a photograph from film. And what of transparency film? Would a photograph only be made from negative film if printed and from slide film if shown?

"And at the same time, I like the distinction. Taking a picture is what you do when you press the shutter release button (and I suppose I'd include all you've done in preparation of releasing the shutter, though I wouldn't be against counting that a separate activity). Taking the picture is recording the image—on to film or a memory card. Then you do something (or multiple things) with that recorded image—delete it, save it, print it, upload it, email it, straight from the camera, post-processed...basically, I don't think that what comes after taking the picture can consistently be equated to making a photograph. But whatever it is, it is separate from taking the picture."

martsharm: "Of all the photographic techniques I've attempted to practice and understand, printing is ultimately the most fulfilling. Shooting is an exciting and motivating process; reviewing and editing have the most potential for chorelike boredom (but possibly are the part of the process that most rewards careful, patient diligence); but printing, assuming some semblance of success, generates a warm sense of creative achievement and reward. The print is evidence that all the bother was worth it: the thinking, the preparation, the shooting, the editing, not to mention the expense, were all in the pursuit of creating—well, let's say it—art. And that is a noble cause. Furthermore, and apropos of Ctein's column, a bunch of 1s and 0s on a stripe of magnetic media are a poor way to express such emotionally-charged material. Only by making such code permanent, tangible flesh can we truly say we have made a photograph. All of which is a roundabout way of saying yes, I agree with the premise of your column."

JPH: "Sorry, I have nothing to comment on what I see as nothing more than a quibbling of semantics...but do want to comment on that absolutely fabulous photo shown of Ctein's! That is just simply beautiful! And it's a snapshot JPEG of the print! What is it called? I tried to find it on his site, but couldn't locate it...the closest I came was 'Diamond Ring'...Anyway, just wanted to give that shout out to Ctein, beautiful image. And thanks to you for just happening to snap a pic of that particular photograph, and sharing it."

Mike replies: Ctein showed me three pictures I thought were outstanding. All very different. The amazing moon picture was one. I told him we have to have a sale of them next year. He doesn't want to hear it because he's in the throes of a serious darkroom grind for the Last Dye Sale. But I'll be persistent....

Grix: "All my life (since 1958 anyway), I've been taking pictures. My mouth doesn't form well around the words 'making photographs.' Until I print them. Then it's easy for me to say, 'Here's a photograph I made back in...etc.'"

Sarge: "In Waray (the native language in Leyte and Samar, Philippines; my first language), the loan word for a photograph (noun) is Kodak. So is the verb (photographing, taking pictures) conjugated accordingly. A photographer is a para-Kodak or simply a Kodaker in pidgin.

"When asking permission to take a Kodak of a farmer at work, I usually answer the almost inevitable 'what for?' question with 'Facebook,' which most everybody has heard of, even in the boondocks. (Very few, if any, know what a 'blog' is. For that matter, few had heard of Fuji or Agfa whose films and developing kiosks were also available locally in pre-digital days.)

"As for the 'making pictures' part, it just occurred to me that the only photos I have actually printed were those of farmfolks in my home town, of whom, or in whose property, I have taken pictures. I usually give away these small prints (1/2 or 1/4 of an A4 photo paper printed at a local Internet cafe) when returning for follow-up shoots.

"Another regional example of taking and making pictures:

"My sister while posing to have her picture taken by her companion with the Hong Kong harbor in the background, also had her photo taken by a local pro unbeknownst to her. As they prepared to move on several minutes later, she was confronted by the photographer with her picture printed on a melamine plate. She took it! (At HKD 20, she was indeed taken.) The plate is now displayed at our parent's home. WB aside, it's not a bad picture."

Comments

[William Barnett-Lewis]

Interesting thought that's almost theological in it's view of the process.

I would have to say that while I attempt to make photographs every time, there's an awful lot of picture taking that gets in the way...

[David Paterson]

Well I take pictures too, but art photographers "make images", don't they?

[Tim]

The idea of a `finished JPEG' is a bit elusive these days; many people use Lightroom and publish straight from RAW+XMP->online. The fact that there might be JPEG involved either at the point of upload or in the process of displaying in a browser using the JPEG format, are somewhat lessened by the fact that the person never created a specific file.jpeg themselves.

To answer the questions: I push the buttons and twiddle the sliders and run some scripts.

[Kevin Purcell]

Aren't these just parts of speech?

I create images
You make photographs
They take pictures
Y'all grab snapshots

[Ed]

Could not care less....in Dutch we don't even make that distinction....we have a verb

"fotograferen"

What I think you say (but being Dutch of course I have to grasp a somewhat alien concept) is making the distiction between photographing and printing/showing/publishing. In your context/concept Van Gogh never was a painter. But hey, he was Dutch, and in Holland we have a verb for making paintings....ah, in English even U.S. English to:

"schilderen (to paint)"

That's it. Only Vivian Maier looks a bit sad now, on her lofty cloud.

Greets, Ed.

[Kalli]

You know, I'm not entirely persuaded that these distinctions are useful, Mike. I may well be missing the point or my brain all non-functional after a tiring day.

However, your post, and the difference between taking a picture and making a photograph, did strike a chord in me. It made me think of how I've been taking pictures and then posting them to Flickr. If I posted a photo to Flickr it had made the cut. Ar at least I thought it was potentially good enough to make the cut and tossing it out there, getting comments and looking at it "in the wild" would lead me to a decision about whether it made the cut.

So, yeah, I guess this does make some sense to me.

[hugh crawford]

Oh it's the farmers vs. the hunter gatherers vs. the epistemologists thing.

I'm not crazy about "taking" pictures or photographs. Taking implies that the picture is there all along and like a miner or hunter you are appropriating* it. Marcel Duchamp, Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince exemplify this.

Pablo Picasso called attention to this by pasting other imagery into his paintings (well really Georges Braque did it and Picasso appropriated the idea of appropriating, just like he appropriated everything else he did)**

Infinite regress skirted here...

Take for example this street photography exchange.

Prosaic photographer:
"Can I take your picture?"
Pedantic pedestrian:
"No! It's mine! Give it back!"

Taking implies a zero sum game, making implies that you are contributing something new.

And don't even get me started on "shooting"

*I don't have any problems with this , all art is appropriating something is it is going to work.

** there is about a MFA thesis worth of stuff that should intercede*** on behalf of the argument for what originality means in this context and I'm not going to write it.

***pun intended

[Dave in NM]

Very briefly, this is what the words mean to me.

Taking Pictures, i.e., Shooting, Exposing Light-sensitive Media to Create a Latent (undeveloped) Image, Capturing (ugh - worse than "photog" or "analog camera")

Making Photographs, i.e., Developing, Processing, Editing, Printing, Creating a Physical Photographic Artifact

Making Pictures, i.e., Doing Photography (also implies a mental process that might not involve photographic equipment)

Here's a distinction that I've been consciously making for several years now: When I bring a camera along with me to record a family outing, a holiday, or other social activity, I'm taking pictures, and I'm in Dad mode, or tourist mode. When I throw my gear into the car and take off by myself, for parts unknown, in search of something that I hope might transcend mere representation of what's in front of me, I'm making pictures.

I've taken pictures my whole life - there has always been a camera availabe, but there were a couple of decades where I didn't make a single picture.

[Ken Lunders]

In Madison last Saturday, Ctein shows me a photograph he made.

Really, it looks more like a print to me. No doubt in this case he made it by first capturing light with a camera, or took a picture, as you keenly illustrated with the first image in your post.

Somehow, it seems, the word "photograph" has come to mean something so generic and slippery to get hold of it has lost specific meaning. Not to say it is meaningless, of course. Only that getting people to immediately understand what exactly it is that is meant by the use of the word becomes somewhat challenging in itself. Your post today being a great example.

Cutting myself short I'll just say that from my perspective, I like to take pictures. It is a lot of fun, after all. Sometimes I'll post images I've made from them on the web. Rarely I'll go the extra mile and have a print made.

[GKFroehlich]

Mike,

By your definitions, I always do both the taking and the making of photographs (though the latter often doesn't take the form of prints). However, I find that I, and others with whom I discuss such matters, have a different interpretation of your terminology. When we respond to a scene that develops right in front of us, and we had no hand in its development, we are "taking" a photograph. On the other hand, when we carefully plan the position of the camera relative to the subjects (to include choice of focal length and camera position), and carefully plan (indoors)or monitor (outdoors) the lighting to get just the effect we want (I avoided "pre-visulaized", just for you!), then we are "making" a photograph. Seems a reasonable interpretation, and I know I'm not alone in using the terms this way. Not arguing with yout definitions, just sayin'...

[Gordon Reynolds]

So ... if you take pictures but don't display them in any form, are you still a photographer? Or a pictographer? Or ... ? If a tree falls, etcetera.

Aside from that question, I think these distinctions are spot on. I'd pondered this question before (i.e., taking versus making) and it had not occurred to me to think of it the way you described it.

[latent_image]

As someone who used to shoot transparencies for publication, there was always in my mind a distinct designation for what I was doing, especially since the transparency was my finished product (there being no making afterwards). It was "camera work." I never could find a verb I liked for camera work. Don't like "shoot" at all, though I use it. I prefer the specificity of "camera work" compared to "taking pictures." An art thief could be taking pictures.

[Bruce Bordner]

I've been taking pictures for 45 years, and I can only find about 150 images that print well at all... but I'm still learning.

I shoot what I find rather than creating images, so I tend to have visual sets (slide-shows) rather than stand-alone images. The images relate to and reinforce each other, but you can still take time to examine each selected instant rather than seeing a video. But we have to display these sets in such limited resolution!

A good print is a wonderful thing; it allows one to be fully immersed in one specific instant. But you need a compelling, complex image that stands alone.

So I like your definition of "making" as primarily being the act of sharing the image with others. Once we have a 36 megapixel video display, these differences too will fade...

[John Krill]

I'm someone who loves making prints. In the film days most of my prints were no larger than 8x10 and only in B&W.

Now in the digital age, using my own printer, 13x19 prints are possible and in flaming color.

Yes there is a difference between taking and making.

[BH]

You print it, or it's nothing.

This is coming from someone who is critically lacking in the production of finished prints, primarily due to constraints of time and (particularly) money. We obsess over this or that camera body and this or that lens, but nobody's particularly concerned that a simple Nielsen frame with archival quality materials will run you about $100 a pop, or that it costs half a grand to put ink in a printer.

I try to produce a few - meaning maybe three - sets of finished images per year. Out of the thousands of frames shot, if I can produce a dozen quality prints that will be around for a century or so, I'm happy. I think this is sad, really, but it's a costly endeavor and curating ones own work can be extremely challenging and time consuming if you're obsessed with turning out something that has a real purpose.

The other 99.99% of "good" images land on flickr or facebook or the like. They're "nice". And then they disappear into the void of the internet, for nobody to give a damn about again.

You print it, or it's nothing.

[SteveB]

I like the distinction and think it is important. I take lots of pictures, load them into my computer and cull the horrible ones. Then I go back and cull the not so good ones. Then I go back on keep the ones I like or that have some meaning to me. Then I may post or print a few. But, what about those I like, but not enough to share. Do they have any value? Will they just disappear when I die (or my computer does)?

[BH]

One more quick comment:

The story of Vivian Maier is a great illustration of the distinction between taking pictures and producing photographs. Unless someone discovered her body of work and put it out there for all to see, it simply would have been a bunch of film in a box. Maier was dead, so it no longer had any value to her, and it had no value to any of us who had no idea it existed. And if her work was simply posted on the internet it's not likely it would have received the acclaim that it did once it was printed and hung on a wall.

Print it, or it's nothing. Well, maybe it's a box of film. Which is better than a dusty old hard drive, if you ask me.

[Richard Tugwell]

Leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time, take nothing but photographs...

[Soeren Engelbrecht]

My native language is Danish, so much of this doesn't apply to our language (we're actually closer to Dutch :-). But it just occurred to me, that whenever I use a camera, I say that I'm "taking pictures", but when I tell my wife that I'll be spending the evening in front of the computer (scanning negatives or working on RAW files), I say to her that I'll spend the evening "making pictures". I do speak Danish to my wife, obviously, but the distinction is still there :-)

Incidentally, we mostly use the word "fotografi" (a photograph) when we want to distinguish the medium from, say, a painting or collage. Our word for picture is "billede", and that is not limited to photographs.

[John]

There once was a bishop called Berkeley,
Who remarked, metaphysically, darkly:
"Quite half what we see
Cannot possibly be,
And the rest's altogether unlarkly".

In the UK, Berkeley does actually rhyme with darkly. Can't remember who wrote this, so I regret I can't give due credit. Bishop George Berkeley was the 17th/18th century philosopher who wondered if a tree fell in a forest, with no-one around to notice, did it truly fall?

[Mark]

I have always liked the term "Taking Pictures". For me it describes what I do more than anything else. I have always hated when photographers describe the process as "Making Photographs", it sounds pretentious and unless you're Jerry Uelsmann I don't think you can get away with it.

At least its not as bad as "Creating Photographs". If you say that you're just a douche.

[Tim Bray]

I take huge numbers of pictures, and publish photographs on my blog at https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/What/Arts/Photos/ - and occasionally even sell one or two.

The distinction seems so self-evident as to hardly be worth writing about, but as with many of these things, that’s only obvious once it’s been written about, so thanks.

[hugh crawford]

"And if her work was simply posted on the internet it's not likely it would have received the acclaim that it did once it was printed and hung on a wall."

But the reason it was on the wall in the first place was because it was already acclaimed, mostly on the Internet.

There is this widely held and peculiar idea that work becomes well known because it gets shown, but in fact work gets shown because it is well enough known to get shown.

[Russ]

"As long as it's just a RAW file you've assigned five stars to, it isn't quite a photograph, yet."

What if you've shown it to someone on the back of your camera?

[I think it's more the ideas that might be helpful here, rather than the actual semantics. One of the nice things about being a photographer today is the same as the nicest thing about being an amateur: you decide. We each determine and define our own practice. The semantics are only useful if they help any of us clarify that for ourselves. --Mike]

[robert quiet photographer]

Probably I could say I take many photos...I make only a few photographs...you gave me something to think about...but I like printing...postprocessing and printing...editing....it 's a long work...
robert

[Jeff]

I was very deliberate in my use of both terms when I commented on the earlier post as follows..."I'll settle for "making photos" (or pics). Not pretentious, and implies more of a workflow than the initial act of "taking" a photo."

The distinction I make is different than yours: the 'taking' part is the same; the 'making' part, however, is a broader term for me that encompasses every part of the workflow, including the taking, and then the printing, matting, framing and display (for the worthy ones). I did it with film, and now I do the same with digital, just using different tools.

I prefer to think that I 'make' a photo in my head before I actually press the shutter (Ansel's 'visualization' term to me is too pretentious, but meaningful). So yes, it starts with the 'taking' but the terminology that best embraces the entire process, for me, is 'making a photo.' It's the whole deal, not the back end.

But, just semantics.

[Dogman]

I take pictures. They start out as what's in the camera and end up printed on ink jet cotton rag paper and stored in boxes or hung on the wall. But it's still taking pictures to me.

[Michael Perini]

I think it's an important discussion, and the points you make are not trivial, and more clarity would be helpful.
Personally, I see a great divide in the way 'pictures' are treated between those whose experience includes significant time "before the digital flood" (Mike, surely you can coin a word for this), and those whose experience with photography came after.
We no longer hear people concerned if their pictures 'came out' because even for the most casual of picture takers, technology has solved that problem. As the act of taking record pictures has become ever easier, and the ability to share them ever faster, it has become harder for most folks to view them as special, rare, or important.

This seems to have led folks who take pictures/make photographs with even mildly artistic intent to use the more 'loaded' terms that you described in order to pre-condition the audience that they are about to see work from a 'fine art photographer' or some such name.
We see jargonized comments like 'nice capture' or 'nicely seen' to indicate an 'informed viewer'
This is understandable because there are many people who care deeply about photography and who are driven to do it by a creative spirit, or desire to document, or simply to put a frame around something and say' consider this'
For me, a picture is still most complete as a physical print.
A print put out into the world is a complete thing. It is not subject to someone's screen size, or calibration, it simply 'is' for better or worse.
personally, I'm even mildly reluctant to show someone the back of the camera because those pictures are not yet my pictures, they have not had the benefit of my (to misuse a term) 'rendering intent'.
This is not because I consider my pictures 'important' or 'fine Art'
which I do not, but I DO consider them mine and as such feel a duty to have them 'say what I mean' to the best of my ability.
No excuses necessary or allowed.
So for my personal work (or as my kids call it 'Dad's pictures of nothing') I shoot, edit, let it age a bit, revisit and perhaps tweak, and for those few that somehow speak to me I make 2 prints to the best of my ability and put them neatly in boxes.
Commercial work is more often than not delivered as digital files.
For those, the art and care of 'presentation' is gone

It gave me great comfort to see Ctein 'presenting' finished prints in a box. The Craft of Photography is still an important (and the title of David Vestal's wonderful book) but increasingly an overlooked aspect of the medium. TOP print sales show that there is still appreciation for that craft. I know that I have been instructed by Ctein's Dye of Tri-color Ferns that I keep next to my printer to keep me humble.
So this discussion is helpful to both kinds of photography --the casual and the more formal, and it would be more helpful still if it came up with a term to describe what many of us are drawn to do but unable to adequately describe. (Especially if it could be done without sounding pretentious)
Now how about a term for those of us who came of age 'before the digital flood'
Michael.

[Mike Johnston]

"'before the digital flood' (Mike, surely you can coin a word for this)"

Antedigitaluvian.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antediluvian

You're welcome.

Mike

[Tim F]

I'll go with the third option - I just take pictures. Although I think about other things, like why I'm doing it and how I do it, how I describe it doesn't seem as important (to me).

[Pat Cooney]

I agree with Ed.

In English we, like the Dutch, have a perfectly good verb, "to photograph." I strongly prefer it to the more commonly used "take, shoot, capture, or make a photograph" to describe what I do with a camera in my hands.

What I do after I photograph has other, more appropriate and specific verbs such as "view, edit, process, print, post, present, show or publish" to describe my subsequent actions.

[Steve Jacob]

Two opposing takes..

1. It's all in the word photograph

Photograph is a Greek derived term which means light drawing.

Whether you take, make or dance with a photograph does not matter because it is not a photograph until it's seen. So clicking the shutter is not taking a photograph, it's capturing light. Developing it (or viewing it) is where it gets drawn.

So strictly speaking when you press the shutter, there is no photograph so you haven't taken one....yet.

2. The potential is all that's required

Did Beethoven make music when he wrote the score for the 9th Symphony, or did it have to be played? Does my word document exist unless the computer has unscrambled the tags and formatted it for me to read?

I would say yes in both cases - the information that can be interpreted (in more than one way) is still an artefact, even if it cannot be viewed or heard.

In neither case is there a distinction between the taking and the making. The distinction is in the definition of the artefact itself.

;-)

[Ken White]

Went to the Bend Country to take some pictures this week. Made the photograph when I returned. The original image is source material which may or may not contain a finished photograph. This one did contain a photograph.

http://www.pbase.com/kwhite/image/150515647

[Darrell Marquette]

You have hit the nail squarely on its head. I like the distinction you make between taking a picture and making a photograph. Makes perfect sense to me. Just today, I went to lunch and took 16 pictures and then came home and made 3 photographs from those.

[Dave]

I suppose I'm out of step here - when I see a photograph I look at a picture. Photographs aren't made with brushes and paint, or charcoal and paper, but pictures are.

I'll carry on using cameras to make photographs as a way of making pictures.

[Ed]

@Pat,

I see you share more of my insights....a book to me is the new form of exhibition. Started making books this month actually. On Blurb in my case (though I'm not completely happy with the Blurb quality I should say).

But thus I photograph as an antidigitaluvian and in fact still somewhat analog photographer should do (great word Mike, lets call Websters).

Greets, Ed.

[Dennis Fallon]

Hugh:
That reminds me of the line from "Annie" ...
"May I take your coat ?"
"Will I get it back ?"

I also agree that "taking pictures" sounds very trivial when the act involves lots of prep work to setup whatever is to be photographed (on location lighting, makeup, possibly involving an art director, etc.) I mentioned in reply to Mike's post on Jay Maisel that he embodies everything I'd like to be in a photographer - I do it to capture/record/respond to what I see when I look around, and in a cyclical way, to learn to look around differently (channeling Dorothea Lange here). So taking a picture fits my style of photography even if it short changes those who actively and intentionally create their images.
I guess any of a variety of terms works, sometimes better, sometimes worse. But I still cringe when I read "Nice capture !"

[Dennis Fallon]

David duChemin has an interesting post that touches on this, but is more about how, why & whether we talk about photographs than the terminology:
http://davidduchemin.com/2013/05/nice-capture/

[Ed Hawco]

When I was a photography student at art college (pre-digital; early '90s) I tried to open a similar discussion among my fellow students regarding what exactly is "the photograph." The rhetorical question I started with was the case of photographing for a magazine. You make a print, and the print is reproduced in the magazine. Assuming the intention was for the photograph to appear in the magazine (as opposed to the magazine simply reproducing a print that was made for it's own sake), then is the magazine page "the photograph" or is it simply a reproduction of the print, which itself was "the photograph?"

I was prepared to argue that if the photographs were shot for the magazine, that the magazine page constitutes the final "photograph," and the print is just an intermediary.

Unfortunately I couldn't get anyone to pick up the conversation, because no one there was thinking along those lines so they had no interest in such discussions. Not even the teachers. So much for semiotics and rhetoric.

That said, this discussion, along with some other things going on lately, have convinced me that it is time to settle in and get serious about making prints from my digital files. Given how fussy I was about darkroom work, I expect this to be a long an arduous process. And expensive.

[robert e]

I've swung back and forth on this. In fact, very recently I realized that, for me, it's always about the print, and always has been, even during the years when I looked at printing as a chore that I'd gladly hand off to someone else, only caring about the part where I was working a camera. Even then, it turns out, the reason it was fun was because one was using all those cool machines, skills and techniques to make pictures.

Makes perfect sense to me now: printed photographs--beautiful images on paper--are what drew me to photography in the first place. It was, and it turns out still is, the point.

I still think printing's a chore--a rewarding craft, yes, but seldom fun. That is, until that moment when there's a wonderful picture in my hand, printed in just the right way to bring out the things that are wonderful about that picture. Then, it's fun; and more than fun.

On the semantics, what's wrong with "print", "making a print" and "printing"? I note that photoshop has only expanded the potential implications of the verb "make" as applied to photographs, further distancing it from "take". And for those who take umbrage at "take's" greedy side, please take a moment to take note of the word's more gentle and generous aspects.

The problem with photography vocabulary is that photography is so broad a practice--photography is everything from Hubble images to birthday snaps to fashion spreads to gallery art to journalism to cell microscopy. It's like cooking. What does "preparing a dish" mean, vs "cooking" dinner or "whipping up a bite"?

[Richard Jones]

I've avoided the phrases you mention by using photograph as a verb:

"Today, I photographed down by the lake."
"I'm going to photograph at the party tonight."
"May I photograph you with that unique hat you are wearing?"

Later, I may use the images recorded in the camera to post on a web site, to send by email, or to make a print.

-Richard

[Dan Khong, Singapore.]

If you take pictures and don't make pictures, it means you don't have a hard copies that you can hold in your hands. Very cheap and clever so you say, cos you can store it in your HD here and there, or in cyberspace.

Do you seriously think the next generation will have the time or the inclination to examine your intangible collection of pictures?

[Philip Morgan]

I think this is far more than a semantic niggle, or a mechanical distinction between unfinished or finished work.

I think "taking" vs. "making" gets at the heart of the photographer's *relationship* to what they are approaching either with the force necessary to sieze something that's not theirs, or with a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect. I prefer to say I am "making pictures" (or photographs) because I aspire to a collaborative and deeply respectful relationship with the content of my photographs.

I do think words matter, but I think the meaning here is less about the mechanical outcome of "take" vs. "make" and much more about the state of mind in which the picture is made. While plenty of very well-intentioned people say "take pictures", I do wonder about the cumulative effect of take, take, take, take, take being associated with picture making within our culture. Does it have something to do with the general hostility towards photographers, for example? After all, they're often self-described "takers"...