Last weekend, I found a cool old photography book at a yard sale. It seems to be part of a series called Aperture, and this one is titled “The Snapshot,” and it highlights many photographers and their idea of what a snapshot is. A couple of them also wrote some articles about their views on “the snapshot” and how it differs from any old photograph. All the pictures are in black and white.
I gingerly looked through all the pictures and wasn’t too enchanted by any of them till I came to the section for photographer Wendy Snyder Macneil. All of her snapshots were of people, and they were done in such a way that I wanted to know more about them. I’ve always wanted to take photos like this of people, but I have never gotten it quite right. Or my subjects are never as serious as I wish them to be. The pictures I looked at on these pages were real, full of contrast, expression, unposed. Almost as if the person was thinking about something really important, or about to speak, but didn’t.
In an introduction at the beginning of her section, Macneil writes: “Despite many changes of time and style, the essential expressions of a person’s life are always there to be seen.”
Something about that sentence really gets me. If you look at photos over time of a person, there’s always something that is uniquely them in each one. A unifying essence. And maybe, when you can capture that essence, then that is what a snapshot really is. Maybe a snapshot is more of a moment that captures the real and true essence of the subject in the photo, rather than just a picture. You can take pictures of anything, but to actually capture the true nature of what the picture is, what is going in, the feeling behind the moment you’ve captured…that is what I think differentiates the snapshot from all the rest.
A few weeks ago, looking through a box of old photos at the flea market, I came across a photo of a man holding a baby on his lap. The only thing in the photo not in shadow was the baby. Turning it over, the words “Anybody’s guess” was written. I had wanted to buy it, and write a story about it. But I didn’t. And now I really want to go back and hope that no one else has snatched it up. It was another photo that could be put into the category of a snapshot. It wasn’t about the man or where the baby was. The photo was about the baby. And noone could remember who it was.
Ahh, I could go on and on about such things. I’ll be sure to post the picture if I find it again. I’m sure I will, if I’m meant to have it. I’ve been slowly getting my creative mood back lately, so I may even start to take pictures of my own again to share. We’ll see.