Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Wesley Verhoeve's avatar

I must admit, and not with any sense of pride, that I have an involuntary eye roll that comes out when someone argues that "make" is gentler than "take" and therefor preferred. We attribute our own meaning to words, and the process of making or creating is inherently also destructive or manipulative, just like taking implies. Sometimes it strikes me as one of those things that people with a lot of extra time on their hands spend worrying about. I'd rather focus on taking (or making, whatever your preference is) more photos.

Expand full comment
Amy Touchette's avatar

This is such an important distinction, making vs taking, because it gets at the core of what photographers do. Whether staged or impromptu, you make a photo, and you do so with your very own bare hands. (Clicking the shutter is just the beginning. Think of all else you do with your hands to finish making your picture. Not to mention how many clicks and how much camera holding and other efforts it took to make one compelling picture.) To take a photograph implies it existed before you photographed and then stole it from someone. It’s this very notion that confuses people about photography and can give it a bad name. In my street photography courses, we talk about this very idea because many people don’t know how to think about what they are actually doing on the street and whether it’s morally or ethically wrong. Theres a lot more to being an ethical photographer than just word choice, or sussing this out intellectually, but to understand the importance of photography in society is partially to understand that a photograph is made not taken—and with a great deal of effort.

Expand full comment
69 more comments...

No posts