BE 410: Photo, Image, Picture - What's the Difference?
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This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 410, Photo, Image, Picture. What's the difference?

Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.

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- Hey, Lindsay, how are you? - Hey, Michelle, I'm doing great. How's everything in your world today? - Everything is good over here. Hey, Lindsay, how do you choose the images for the All Ears English website? - Oh my God, good question. Well, geez, we have had some of those on for a while. Some of them come from our live events, you know, beautiful pictures.

of us with our listeners enjoying adventures learning english in the cities yeah action oriented photos michelle action oriented okay perfect so lindsay today we're gonna answer a great really direct listener question um

Do you want to read it for us? Yes. Okay. Here is a listener question from Asad Deblis. And he says, please talk about the difference between photo, image, and picture. Now, this is a high level nuanced question, Michelle.

isn't it very oh very yeah um this is a good one and this is i i wanted to do this on business english because maybe our students are involved in graphics um and you know often for a presentation you might need to use something so it's really good to talk about this here today so guys make sure though that you hit follow wherever you listen to the business english podcast so that you never miss any of our episodes

Let us come to you. Yes. Hit that follow button right now. So again, great question. Good for business. Also good for life, but good for business, especially if you work with graphics or you're making visual decisions or presentations, which honestly, uh, things

things are so visual these days we're all making these decisions aren't we Michelle yes yeah oh yeah for sure I mean so okay photo image and picture are these similar would you say or is it just really easy yeah okay it's one two three that's it yeah when I think about it right away as a native speaker absolutely they're very similar right

They're very similar. It's hard to even think about what the difference is, but we will answer this question today for our listener. Right? Right. Exactly. So let's go into it. Let's start with photo. So photo is short for photograph. Yes. And this is something that was taken with a camera.

nowadays, likely a phone camera. Someone actually took the picture generally. Right. So I was looking through old photos of our conferences. My hair used to be hilarious. I'm sure a lot of us feel that way. Or if your parents have old photos of you on the wall from when you were 10, you know, maybe you had braces or something and it can be a little embarrassing if you, if you bring a partner home, right. To meet your family. Of

Of course, of course. So photograph is really basic. Oh, let's take a look at those photos. I, you know, I have a box of old photos. Oh yeah. For sure. Okay. So I would say photo is probably one of, well, it's one of the more commonly used ones. I think picture is commonly used too, Michelle. But photo is used very often, right? Photograph a little less often.

Okay. Then we have image. So what is the difference with image?

Yeah. So it's some sort of visual. So it can be a photo. It can be a graphic. It's a little more general. Okay. So let's take a look at the images and see what we want to put on the PowerPoint. Yeah. So it could be a lot of different things, right? A lot of things. It's important that you said that it could be a graphic. It could be a cartoon image, right? And that wouldn't be a photo.

Sometimes you see like cartoon drawings. Those are not photos, right? Because they're not actually taken of actual reality, right? They're just created. So it's more broad. Exactly. Yeah, it's more broad. But yeah, I wouldn't say...

like on the other hand, if you had want to show me photos from your vacation, I wouldn't say, Oh, look at those images. Right. It doesn't quite. Yeah. It's a little too formal to say that. I think, you know, however, if you've taken pictures and you're putting them on a presentation,

You could say, oh, let's insert some images. So how does it make it an image once you move to a presentation? Good question. Does it make it more professional all of a sudden or it puts it into another category? Right. I think if you're going to select it on a file or something. Right. To me, a photo makes me think of actually we're looking at photographs, a photo from a photo album.

um whereas the image oh we're going to add some we're going to add some images to this website yeah from what the photographer took at our last shoot right image and an image i guess could also be an icon potentially not to add right another thing here yeah no but yeah icon probably falls under the category of image definitely not

not really picture and not photo and icon, just a little, you know, we have the little things that maybe little emojis even. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or for social media. Right. Like for sure. Yeah. Instagram image, whatever it is. Um, so when you're selecting them for a presentation, they become kind of an image along with the icons and the other things. That's what I think. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That to me makes the most sense. So then let's do picture now. So

picture. Wow. This could be a photo. It could be a drawing. Right. So I think of something, maybe it's in a frame. This is a, this is a very versatile one. So if you say, for example, we should put some pictures on the wall to spruce this place up a bit. It's too sterile in here to be a pediatrician's office. Yeah. And of course you could also say, you could also be saying we should put some photos, but that's a little more specific.

right? You could put a picture and it could also be a photo, right? There's a picture on the wall in the office, in the dentist's office, but it's also a photograph maybe of your family or something. Right. Or it could be a picture your son drew that you want to show everybody. That's the one I was thinking. It's not really a picture.

going to be an image you wouldn't say let's put some images on the wall right that feels too sterile um it also feels weird let's put some images on the wall but i think about you know kids will draw you know pictures for their parents right i mean i did that as a kid like your mom i drew you a picture right so that's not just a photo it's a physical drawing

Right. They go on the fridge. They go on the fridge. Yeah. So yeah, exactly. I mean, to me, photo is the most, this is a photograph, right? Yeah. This is the most specific. It's just a photograph to me. The other two, there's a little bit more, Oh, it could be a, this, it could be. You're right. Because at the beginning I said there, I think I said it's the most general, but actually I take that back.

I take it back. I think you're right. I think photo is the most specific, the most rigid, right? It's a photograph. It's either a photograph of nature, of people, of real life, right?

Right. Right. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Which actually that really, ah, that reminds me of traveling. I really want to go on vacation. I know Michelle, have you ever traveled abroad and felt like you needed a good internet connection at a key moment, maybe to send photos home because traveling is all about photos, right? Definitely. And I take a lot of photos. So yeah, I mean, so I actually, I remember when I traveled to India, we were on a driving tour and I was taking all these great pictures.

pictures and but we were in a remote area we were on I think we were on the way to Jaipur then I wanted to take send these pictures in real time to my family I was so excited but I couldn't because you know the only wi-fi was at the hotel I didn't have wi-fi on my phone oh my gosh when was this how long ago is this

Oh my gosh. That was nine years ago. Nine years ago. Luckily, technology has changed in the past five years, right? And our listeners do have options to stay connected while traveling. That's why we want to mention our sponsors right here. Yes.

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Right, right, right. Exactly. So totally. I mean, I wish that I had had something like Sali at that time, because then I would have been able to send those pictures when I was so excited. But also all Sali eSIM plans are compatible for iOS or Android devices. So it doesn't matter what you have, you can get it.

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Excellent. Go and check out our sponsors. Perfect. All right, Michelle, let's get back to talking about these terms. What else do we need to know about photographs and photos? Well, we're kind of going to review this quickly, and then we're going to ask each other some questions and then do a role play. So

um so again photo in albums on your ID card a company website you might see a photo um somebody took it with a camera Lindsay what about image yes image would be as we said before graphs charts even maybe icons that you add to a presentation or it could also be a photo as we said earlier in the episode when you go to upload something it becomes

kind of a more broad category of an image. Okay. Right. And then there's picture and that, you know, you might be in a frame on the wall. Somebody may have drawn the picture. Um, it might be a picture in a book, your picture book, right. Or it could be photos. And sometimes, um, people say, um, pics, pics, pics. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So

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Lindsay, how often do you look through old photos? I do pretty often, especially when something triggers the desire to do that. So for example, I had dinner with a friend, two friends that I had known when I lived in Japan 20 years ago. I met them last week in LA for dinner and I hadn't

seen them in 20 years and we were talking about all of our mutual friends and our experiences and that night i went home and i just went through all my japan photos and just thought through and it rushes all these memories back of who you were then how you've changed it's just incredibly powerful incredible yeah

It is. It is. And Lindsay, do you have any pictures on your walls? Like, do you have art up or what? Yeah, I am looking around my office here. I have a few things up. Sometimes I will be lazy and I'll say when I move into a new place, I'll say, oh, I'm going to fill that white wall. There should never be a white wall. And then two years passes and nothing's there. Right. Yeah.

What about you, Michelle? It's hard to decide. Do you have pictures on your walls at home? I'm curious. Not really yet because we're still just really moving in and figuring out what we want to do. But we do have some...

Like we do, we did put on, we have a fireplace and a button on the mantle. We put a couple and then Dan puts them up just on the dresser in our room just so there's something. But yeah, yeah, yeah. We really need to get on that. But yeah. So should we do a role play? Let's jump to a role play, Michelle. So here we are working together on a PowerPoint for a work presentation, which is a situation I think our listeners find themselves in a lot, right? Working together on a presentation.

So, yep, here we go. Okay, so now let's talk images. So what should we use? We could add in some photos from last year's conference. Oh, great idea. I can put some pictures in from that.

Nice. Short and sweet, right? Short and sweet. I think as a bonus, let's talk images. Let's talk images. I know. I thought, I know. I think we might. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Let's talk something. Let's talk something. Hit the follow button to make sure you don't miss that episode. It may be here or it may be over on All Ears English podcast. You also want to be following that one.

So yeah, so what are you saying here? Let's talk images. Let's talk about images. But this is just kind of casual conversational. So we're talking about, okay, the images that we are going to put on the PowerPoint. So again, these could be graphs. They could be anything that we're going to click a button on that we're going to insert and then adjust it in the PowerPoint. I love that. And then you said, hmm, we could add in some photos from last year's conference.

Now we're going to that specific term of photo, photograph. Now you're talking about, you know, you snapped photos of actual probably people at the conference. Maybe you took a picture of the slides at the presentation, but that would make a very boring presentation. Yeah, yeah. It's probably the people, maybe there was a group get together, whatever it was.

people making presentations yeah exactly and then what did i say michelle then you said oh great idea i can put some pictures in from that so you could have said photos but really here it just means the same thing um in the way that you can use pictures or photos right yes i love it so michelle is there another episode our listeners could check out to keep their listening their learning and listening going

Guys, head on over to Business English episode 396. I was test the waters with these office expressions. Love that one. And guys, don't forget to go on over to Saley to get your exclusive 15% discount on all data plans.

use code a e e at checkout or download the saley app go to www.saily.com a e e and go and get your deal all right good stuff michelle what is our final takeaway photos images pictures well in some ways it's really um

easy to tell the difference, right? So a photo, somebody took it, right? That's, we got that, right? Images, it can get a little bit tricky because some of them can mean the same things as another one, but it really depends on the context. So I would say the easiest thing for you to remember is photo,

somebody took it with a camera with their phone image is something you might add into a presentation. It could be a photo. It might not be, it might be a chart. It might be an icon as Lindsay said, and picture frame on the wall. Somebody drew it, but could also.

be a phone amazing i love it i'm glad that our listener is asking this question that is the key this is an incredibly detailed specific high level question so keep sending in your questions send them to support allersenglish.com and we would love to answer your specific question all right michelle good times on the microphone as always and i'll see you next time all right thanks lindsay have a great day take care bye bye

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