Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) a photographer.

1907		Winston-Salem Jrnl (NC) 17 Nov. 7/3: Farrall and edwards are not camera snappers, but portrait photographers.
1910		Chambers’s Jrnl 13 Aug. 589/1: There is no relief in a protest, for the rampant ‘snapper’ knows that the law is on his side .
1924		Northampton Chron. 14 May 6/4: [advert] Unique Offer to Snappers [...] Solid Brass Telescopic Tripods.
1929		W. Winchell Your Broadway & Mine 6 May [synd. col.] A Trib snapper was sent down to make some pictures.
1938		Wisconsin State Jrnl (Madison, WI) 8 Oct. 6/6: Barney, star news- hawk, and Snapper, photographer, arrive late at the scene of [the] murder.
1944		(ref. to Civil War) J.S. Pennell Hist. of Rome Hanks 74: The great Washington society photographer, the Lincoln-snapper.
1957		Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI) 11 Oct. 25/1: Two more Honolulu professional shutter-snappers today joined photographers opposing the new [...] Board of Photography.
1961		‘Lou Rand’ Gay Detective (2003) 106: If that picture snapper don’t get here pretty quick, I’m going home.
1986		Guardian 22 July 18/2: What those in the trade call ‘hacks and snappers’ [...] have become a new specialised class.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 213: [F]ellow snappers like Rod Golding (Daily Tele) and Ron McKenzie (Mirror) and George Lipman (Herald).
1998		Indep. Sport 4 Dec. 16: The Sun snapper was going to doorstep you.
2000		Guardian Weekend 1 Jan. 3: George Eastman in Rochester, New York, had given the amateur point-and-shoot snapper rough equality with the professional photographer.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 132: We changed trains at Carlisle, the snapper and I.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 134: The snapper is flashing away with her camera.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘I’ve shot the shit out of it,’ says the snapper.
2023		D. Whish-Wilson I Am Already Dead 156: ‘[He] married into money, sufficient to get him started as a snapper’.