Somewhere near the beginning of most, if not all, of my photography classes I ask the participants a question. “What’s a photograph”.
Some of the answers I get, and I’m paraphrasing here, are; “A moment caught in time”, “a memory”, “the capturing of a subject”, et cetera.
While a photograph can be thought of as a “moment in time” or evoke “a memory” or “the capturing of a subject” those are what photographs can function as. (I would suggest to those who would state that a photograph involves “capturing a subject” to rethink the use of the word “capturing”.).
What a photograph is, is a recording of light. That’s it. Nothing more.
What a photograph means to us is one thing, but it aint’ what a photograph is.
A photograph is simply a recording of light.