Art Of The Snapshot
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 9:00AM
I suppose the word "snapshot" used to bring to mind amateurish, poorly composed photography made mostly by cheap cameras. These days it's all about smartphones. Everybody has a camera in their phone, "smart" phone or not, and for a growing number of the public, this is their main camera. It's the one they use to " get a quick picture." Fast, easy and done = snapshot.
The whole idea of the "snapshot" really started when Kodak released their Brownie box camera over 100 years ago. For the first time, cameras became widely affordable to the general public and they were encouraged to "celebrate the moments of your life" by taking lots of photos.
People naturally began taking pictures of their everyday lives. People still do...more now than ever. Every month, approximately 2.5 billion pictures are uploaded to Facebook. That's a whole lot of shooting, and it's due to the fact that everyone has a camera with them recording their lives on their smartphones...all in the form of the snapshot.
So would you consider a snapshot a work of art? I'd say definitely yes. Snapshots can be the truest form of the captured moment...this is what was happening, this is where it was and this is who was there. Nothing is carefully posed or composed and no truer capturing of the human spirit...it's all your real history.