Snapshot  photography is usually defined  as having the following characteristics. They must be taken by a snapshot camera Kodak to Holga); snapshot formats are limited in number and small in size; snapshots are generally anonymous; snapshots tend not to be (pictorially self-conscious;  snapshots are made to memorialize their subjects; snapshots have  an  arbitrariness in that unintended effects, large or small, are the rule. They are taken by amateurs who more or less snapped the shutters of their cameras.

Art Galleries and museums have started constructing  snapshots as belonging to the folk or popular art tradition.   The folk or popular art tradition is often interpreted as vernacular photography implying naïve or primitive  art. This is then distinguished from art photographers from Jacques-Henri Lartigue to Nan Goldin have self-consciously borrowed the snapshot look as a stylistic manner. 

A major  difference between the folk and art traditions is intention;  meaning that what we see in the photo was produced deliberately. In the former tradition it is unintentional,  in the latter tradition it is intentional.   This account posits a direct connection between a photographer  and his or her photo. In this scenario, the introduction of the personal serves to ground the narrative in the photographer’s experience, in such a way as to make the intimate bond between subjectivity and memory serve as an unassailable foundation for the image being presented.

Yet we know from postmodernism that there is no direct correspondence between an photographer  and his or her photo since it is  impossible to see through the web of language to some underlying reality.   Our notions of subjectivity--the artist, photographer, amateur--  are the product of language itself. The subject is the product of  photographic language rather than its creator.  The point of making reference to myself and my own intentions is to indicate the perspective from which my narrative is being constructed.