Where I stand…the Decisive Moment

 

The debate what does the Decisive Moment mean to you could rage forever, for it is obvious we are all different and affected by our own circumstances and experiences, even as we age our opinions are modified and interchangeable.

It feels almost sycophantic to admire the Decisive Moment as a movement, first immortalised in Henri Cartier Bressons’ iconic book ‘Images a la sauvette’ due to the outpouring of affection for his work, which has inspired countless photographers since it’s publication in 1952. It also feels fashionable to deplore it, for the very same reasons.

What do i think the Decisive Moment actually means though to me? Had I been asked this question at the beginning of this section of the EYV course I may have been inclined to fully support and uphold the belief that the Decisive Moment was an act of syzygy; captured moments that can not be repeated which are etched onto a visual back drop of perfect alignment a la ‘behind the Gare Saint Lazare, Paris, 1932, telling us something that has, is or about to happen.

What initially inflamed my conscientious bias in this regard was the fact Cartier Bresson admitted this photograph was ‘lucky’ as he couldn’t see the man jumping across the puddle as the railings obscured his vision (Henri Cartier Bresson, ‘L’amour tout court’ YouTube). That is, for me, what gives it the wow factor, a serendipitous charge.

To shoot an image and create a photograph so perfectly precise without intent, premeditation or contrivity only makes me buy further into the wondering magic of photography, with such gratitude that these moments have been bottled by the camera lens for us to keep and marvel at forever more.

However, now having worked my way through the Expressing Your Vision, Part Three ‘Traces of Time’, whilst my inclination is to still value the decisive moment as being that split second moment where everything happens at the right time, I now deepen my belief that any moment can be ‘decisive’ when time is slowed down by the shutter speed. For that exact moment captured on camera can never be repeated, that moment will forever remain decisive on it’s own and in it’s own right. That precise moment in time can never be recaught even if the image is staged over and over, it would always be another moment in time.

This is why I think Henri Cartier Bresson’s images endure to the public and why the appreciation for his work will forever outweigh the criticism of the copy cat replica’s inspired by him; for they are not only fantastically composed by his naturally precise sense of geometry and rhythm within his photographs, which he himself offers as a way to explain the success of his photographs in the documentary L’amour de Court (cited above) , or even the simplified life he presents to us by displaying a narrative to we can instantly recognise and relate to, I believe it is also because he is quintessentially French, as are his images and there is, to me, something so elegant and timeless about what it means to be French. The Decisive Moment concept for me speaks of whimsy, magnification of observations of love whether it is for family or life  but most of all they speak of looking closely to things we miss with our eyes, actual decisive moments.

Whilst I do believe all moments are decisive for their mark in time, it is fair that some decisive moments make better photographs than others, and as Zouhair Ghazzal suggested ‘time passing helps add weight to decisive moments’ Learning Log Link

I have a suspicion that I may well change my mind once more as I work my way through this course. Like the peeling of the onion my exposure to such artistic enlightenment will no doubt continue to have an affect and inform my opinions.

 

Bibliography

1. Youtube, L’amour de Court ‘Just plain love’. Youtube [Online], Available in 5 parts via RANGEFINDER (2008), (Accessed 18 September 2018).
2. Ghazzal, Z. ‘The indecisiveness of the decisive moment’, 2004, [Online] http://zouhairghazzal.com/photos/aleppo/cartier-bresson.htm (Accessed 18 September 2018).