Every photograph ever taken captures some aspect or another of a given place at a given moment, the here-and-now of the then-and-there.  What's captured goes by many names - so call it "the here and now," some call it "the cosmos," some call it "god," some call it "bussho."  

I sometimes call it the "cookie-dough," and the myriad forms mere "animal crackers" cut from the dough by the mind (the "cookie cutter"), but I'm leaning more and more toward just calling it "potential."