The Best Photo of The Week - Do We Create or Simply Take Photos?

Here is a question we have to ask ourselves every time we leave the house or not, with the camera hanging around our neck, in our bag or sitting at home and trying something new.

Do we create or take photos?


At first glance it seems the same, but, at least in my view, things are completely different. To take a photo means to point the camera at a subject that attracts us more at a time and press the shutter button to record an image, which is often just a common snapshoot. The final photo is more the result of a reaction caused by a visual stimulus.

Creating a photo involves a little more work on our part. We watch and even follow the scene in front of us, identify a subject, look for compositional elements to highlight it, follow the light, preview the final frame, compose the frame in the viewfinder or on the camera screen, observe the details, determine what is needed and what it doesn't have to reach the final frame, we focus, set the exposure and finally trigger.

The final photo starts from a vision. We preview the final result long before get our hands on the camera. We already know if it will be black and white or color, already know how frame the subject and how we want to highlight it, we know what processing is needed, we know what aperture or exposure time need to translate our vision into a photo.

Now at the end I close this post with the question, do we want to "take" or "create" photos? For me the answer is simple, I want to create.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
105mm ƒ/16 1s ISO 125
2020 at Home