What is a photograph?
pho - to - graph When I teach I always like to start the class by asking the same question: What is a photograph? There are, of course, many correct answers to that question. The most accurate answer, at least in my opinion, and the which I receive the least often, requires us to take the word apart. The origin of the word photograph comes from two Greek words which translate almost exactly into photo and graph. Photo means light. Graph means to write - or record. So the most accurate answer to my question is that a photograph is a recording of light. That is the literal meaning of the word. Where, you might ask, is this leading? My answer to that is quite simple. If we are recording light then it naturally follows that the camera we are using is simply a recording device. It also means that what's truly important about the final recording is the actual light and how we record it. Photography is all about light! If you want to become a better photographer the mo...
