Are you a snapper?

[cliveh]

While driving to work today, I was thinking that I am most probably a snapper. If I am doing a studio shot then I may take a considerable amount of time in preparation before shooting, but if walking about with a camera, I think I could be described a snapper. This is not a very professional term and perhaps a bit demeaning, but do others recognise this or otherwise in their approach to photography?

[BrianShaw]

Yes, much of the time.

[Vaughn]

No.

BTW...How much a pound does a commie, I mean a red snapper go for these days?

[BrianShaw]

Oh... and I don't think I feel demeaned by that expression.

[Nick Merritt]

I think of it as finding unexpected photo opportunities. Nothing wrong with that.

[dehk]

I'm a snapper, when i think its interesting enough.

[John Austin]

Snapshooting is a valuable way to let new threads of seeing emerge

When using LF I am generally very careful and considerate, the medium draws one in that direction, well, film costs do anyway

I use a couple of snapshot cameras, a Vitessa and a Retina for pix of Rae, the garden, travel and all sorts of things - When I have been starting a new portfolio of "serious work" (hear celestial trumpets) I am stunned by the number of times this new work has been pre-figured in my casual images, or where I made an image tangential to the main body of work I was doing

These snap-glimpses are valuable - Where they are not, the pix are loved by Rae's family and friends around the world

Here is a pic of my snap-cameras, a Voigtlander Vitessa and a Kodak Retina - The wretched, overrated and unreliable Leica may be replaced by a FED2 in a couple of months

[rthomas]

Snapshooting is a valuable way to let new threads of seeing emerge

I agree! I take snapshots much of the time. I started out with 35mm and still shoot that format most of the time. "Wasting film" (to hear my parents tell the tale) is how I learned photography. 35mm became a sort of "photo notebook" for me. When I had an RB67, I would sometimes go back to a scene I shot with the 35mm and make a 6x7cm negative of a specific subject that I first found with the 35mm. Now that I have access to 4x5 and 8x10 cameras, that's even more my way of working.

[ColdEye]

I used to do a lot of snapshots with 35mm, I'd say almost all of my pictures then were shoot now think later. But now that I do not regularly shoot 35mm ( just a om1+50mm and a few rolls of really old film), I try to lessen "snapshots". The costs will be too prohibitive for me if I continue doing them.

[zsas]

I take photographs, I don't recognize that term, it's too deterministic for me. Art is art and I know it when I see it (thanks Potter Stewart), any term to describe the method just gets in the way.