Take photos or make photos?

Things people take:
liberty
virginity
issue
stands
photographs

Things people make:
arts & crafts
love
babies
food
photographs

I suppose I've done both.

The main reason I prefer the former phrase is humility, because the latter seems holier-than-thou, more prescriptive than descriptive. Every time i see "made a photograph" or any tense of the word, I think that I'm doing it wrong and it distracts me from the message of the photograph in question.

I always feel like I am taking something from a scene when I photograph it - it's why I can't take photos sometimes, or why I sometimes wait for applause to cover the snap of my mirror clicking up towards the prism. To me, making something with reactive photojournalism is an oxymoron; "making" only applies to extraordinary illustrations, portraits, etcetera over which I somehow have complete creative control. I don't know that "complete creative control" exists at all outside of self portraits. Maybe it does.

To be humbled almost every day by photojournalism situations, then turn around and be critiqued on and proud of one's own photographs, is a wrenching experience, but I kind of love it.

The Photographs Not Taken is an interesting collection of essays about moments not captured that talks about humility and probably inspired me to write this whole thing.