“My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph.” ~Richard Avedon.
When artists create a piece, it is not to express ideas, concepts or feelings that the subject has, it is to express themselves, or their ideas/feelings of a particular subject. Since photographers are the artist, and the people that are being photographed are the subject, it is the photographer who is expressed in the product. Though the subjects move and exist in their own free will, it is the photographer who sees and decides what to capture.
“You don't take a photograph, you make it.” ~Ansel Adams
Taking implies that the composition was already exisiting and created. photographers do not take and plagiarize reality, but rather by taking a photograph, show their interpretations and expression of the subjects. Thus you do not "take" a photograph, but you "make it". Compositions are created and found by photographers just as any other artist working in a studio.
“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this - as in other ways - they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” ~John Berger
Paintings are recordings of memory, so it is the physical manifestation of the artist's interpretation of the memory. It is an image of something that has already been morphed into what the artist sees/remembers/feels. Whereas photographs, though they are "made" not "taken", are an exact image of that time/event. This allows the viewer to decide what to make of the image, and interpret it as they wish.
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