Friday, January 2, 2015

word choice - Make/take a photograph?

In English we say "take a photograph" whereas in some other languages one would say "make a photograph".



The French say "take" even though they "make" far more often than we do in English, and Germans say "make". The Spanish are also in the "take" camp, so it seems to be related to romance/germanic distinction, further afield, Russians say "make" (I think).



Some say that cameras steal your soul. Saying that a camera removes (one Spanish verb is literally "remove") rather than constructs the photograph seems to betray a very different philosophy and attitude to photography as a creative process.



So, how did we end up using "take" rather than "make"?

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