Lots of photos, little art

We live in a world plagued with snapshooters and blind critics. In our snapshot world, perspective is lost.

I captured an amazing shot of the full moon. I posted it in my photography group and actually won an honorable mention. As a new photographer (meaning I’ve turned pro for a short six years — and been dabbling in astrophotography for only a few months). When I shared my image on my social media page, I heard repeated boasts of taking pictures of the moon and the sky. And I took one just like that! No, you did not.

You are a snapshooter.

SNAPSHOOTERS AND SNAPSHOTS

I thought I had created the term snapshooter, and I was so thrilled. Creating a new word is pretty exciting. But I discovered the term was coined by Minor White in his 1956 Aperture article: A snapshooter is someone who uses a camera to capture a moment in time. The parent who gets the picture of a child’s first step; an employer who gets a picture of her staff at the company picnic; a spouse who captures her man driving his new car. The cookies you proudly made. The new baby. The graduate. The bride and groom.

Photographers define a snapshot as the capturing of a moment, without planning and with little thought, meant to commemorate. The photos and images you store in albums to remember a time, a person, an event. Snapshots hold little value to those outside of that moment or those who do not share the context or significance. Snapshots of your vacation or your kid’s first birthday mean little to me, even if you repeatedly post on social media. Unless I am a family member or close friend, the snapshots are noise I scroll over as I seek a meaningful image.

Snapshots are worthy pursuits as the documentary of day-to-day life.

Yet, every moron with pocket change owns a cellphone with a decent camera. They use these devices to take shots of every meal, every attempt at eyeliner application or experimental hairstyle, every moment of a new baby, every sunset or beach wave. Most use phone camera settings allowing special effects–like bunny ears over a selfie or sparkles over ocean waves. It’s all very adorable and swells social media virtual pages with mediocre and, frankly, boring shots. Often, the examples are out of focus, poorly lit, or in poor taste. No one wants to see your teenager sprawled on his bed in his under ware (privacy violation, by the way) or your healing appendix scar (gross, by the way). No one. We especially are sick — sick I tell you — of you in the mirror trying to be sexy partially clad duck-lip nonsense. You know who you are. And if one more person posts a picture of a crusty casserole or charred steak, I will lose my mind.

Wilson Hicks, in Winter 1953 Aperture issue said:

“That public is made up basically of snapshot lovers. A snapshot, like any photography, is a mergence of two components in register, so to say. One component is the fact, idea, or the emotion or mood, which the picture undertakes to state, present, or to describe. The other component is the graphics, or the combining or forms in light and shade into an image by which the first component is realized. The snapshot enthusiast is most frequently not concerned to a very large degree with the graphics component. To him, a bad snapshot is just as important as a good snapshot because the subject matter, or fact-idea-emotion-mood component, is his primary concern. Even though little Alice’s face is chalked out by the sun or half lost in a shadow, it is still little Alice. The viewer, knowing her so well, by a trick of the imagination sees the real little Alice whenever he looks at her image, which he deludes himself into believing is much better than it actually is. The result of such mental retouching is that he is badly conditioned for looking at any photograph scaling upward in value from a snapshot.… looked upon the camera as a toy and adopted a frivolous approach to the viewing of photographs.”

Worse, these snapshooters rave about their less than amazing captures. It’s painful. Recently, snapshooters have filled social media pages with distant and often out-of-focus glimpses of comet Neowise. The ooos and ahhs amaze me. And in the summer, snapshot after snapshot of ocean waves, beaches, and sunbathing self-obsessed selfies fill social media feeds. In the fall, we get out-of-focus close ups of leaves.

These demands for attention are exactly the definition of snapshot: No one, but the snapshooter cares but the snapshooter or his or her images.

Worse, even snapshooters don’t care about their depicted moments. Some have extended storage — but most forget the majority of images within an hour.

PHOTOGRAPHERS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographers define a photograph as an aesthetically pleasing image interesting and compelling to those outside of the context. Photographs also involve planning, considerations of composition and subject matter, and the appreciation of exposure.

A photograph lasts the test of time.

So, when a photographer posts a photograph which took planning, time and consideration–and which depicts something beyond himself or herself–it is met with the same ooos and ahhs. Where is the appreciation for artistry? The photograph adheres to rules of composition: rule of thirds or sacred spiral; foreground, mid-ground and background. The photograph is in focus and uses depth of field and strategic blur to highlight the subject. The photograph is properly exposed. The photograph tells a timeless story.

The photograph will be admired as a documentary of a wider perspective — the human condition. Sure, occasionally a snapshooter’s image rises to the definition of photograph. And I would argue, even considering the 54,000 images captured every second of every day, https://photutorial.com/photos-statistics/ those snapshots that could be graced with the title of photograph amount to less than one percent.

The diner who digs into a Michelin Star risotto and brags how she makes this exact thing all the time. The guy who shows off the plywood shelf he built with comments about how woodworking is easy. The gardener who compares her flowerbed to botanists’ gardens. When I tone-deaf wail to a favorite song in my car and imagine myself on stage.

Snapshooters.

Painfully, I watched a throng of friends praise an acquired beach scene alleged to be wall art. A stretched print on canvas, out of focus, so poorly exposed the water was almost white. A birthday present for the poster. And the raves flowed. Lovely. Amazing. Beautiful.

No. No, no, no. It was worse than awful. Immersed in our snapshots, we have lost a sense of artistry. We have become tone deaf to superior presentation.

Not everything is art or worthy of plastering across a living room wall. Some pictures belong on social media, to be forgotten and replaced by the next photo of your cat sleeping in a shopping bag.

(Those are cute. I like those. I admit it.)

One can capture a moment for posterity. One can point a cellphone camera at a bowl of chili and rave. One might snap a shot of a vacation spot. These snaps have value recalling what the mind often distorts. Thoughtless, untrained and talentless, the meaning is in the shared moment. But that is all.

The hubris must stop. The comparison of your sad cell phone selfie — where your filtered skin looks like paste and the pathetic pose before your full-length mirror (we see your discarded under ware under the bed, by the way) — to a composed and planned portrait exposing your timeless beauty — must stop. They are not equivalent.

Appreciate the consideration, the composition, the talent of a photograph. And know that long after your snapshot is lost in the bowels of social media servers, that photograph has captured forever and is granted that lifespan.

We are a world of situation comedies and empty live theaters struggling to stay open through donations. We are a world of electronic music and altered lead voices eschewing opera houses. We are a world of movie explosions and adopted objectification through kissy-selfies.

Have we forgotten the artist and celebrated the hack?

Your kid’s macaroni picture is art–to you and you alone. I might smile and nod and yes you about how brilliant your rug rat is, but we both know the pasta sculpture is horrid. The beauty is in the context. Your child is beautiful. The promise the creation delivers is beautiful.

The dried elbow noodles amid swathes of primary-color paint is crap.

Art moves among contexts. Art weaves in and out of timelines. Art raises spirits, inspires, and appeals across cultures.

You want to challenge yourself? Put the frigging phone down. Look around. Take your time. How can you design your image so it’s a photograph? How can you raise your effort to art?

Because you need it. And so do I.

Image created by author in Canva