mfogiel
Mentor
NB23, the shot is great, because the composition is interesting and you managed to freeze a meaningful expression. What makes the shot for me, is the overall balance of spaces, with the alignement of three human figures in a diagonal line that really makes it kick.
Avotius, your cormoran shot is great, it would probably work even better in B&W.
Avotius, your cormoran shot is great, it would probably work even better in B&W.
ClaremontPhoto
Jon Claremont
I have a signed Norman Parkinson 'snap' on my wall. He always called them 'snaps', and I think David Bailey does too.
I've known other photographers such as Bert Hardy who call their photos 'smudges'.
I've known other photographers such as Bert Hardy who call their photos 'smudges'.
R
ruben
Guest
NB23 said:
HI NB23,
I am a bit ignorant of the deep insights of the "desicive moment". Desicive or not you have got a hell of a good image. Congratulations !
Cheers,
Ruben
Avotius
Some guy
x-ray said:
thanks thanks, happy birthday 11/6 to you too. I have your "decisive moment" of the protester on my wall, thats a good one indeed.
Ororaro
Well-known
Avotious,
Thanks for posting. I like the Ducks and the cormorant.
Pherdinand, I know what you see is the guy waiting to pay, but the picture is not even about him. It's about what's happening behind him. Otherwise I wouldn't have taken the picture.
Thanks for posting. I like the Ducks and the cormorant.
Pherdinand, I know what you see is the guy waiting to pay, but the picture is not even about him. It's about what's happening behind him. Otherwise I wouldn't have taken the picture.
Ororaro
Well-known
Well, no. the guy getting the beating was on the floor, so he basically disappeared from the frame.
What you say is extremely interesting. Primarily because you actually try to get into his head and secondly, because the picture is not about him at all. Of course, at first it is, but once you look deeprs, he vanishes to leave place to what's happening behind. At least that's what I was shooting.
To create a debate, a conversation.
Ororaro
Well-known
Pherdinand said:Keith: that's quite decisive indeed. It only lasted a moment, and it brought something extra in the shot. It gave sense to taking the shot. I like it.
NB: i read your comment about your shot and the guy being molested. Now that i look for it, indeed it looks like a guy is being molested behind the window. Difficult to see though.
So i correct myself: it is indeed a decisive moment shot. In the meantime this makes the shot worthy of looking at.
You could do an interesting test (or maybe that's what you were doing - in that case you did fool me). Put it up somewhere and see how many people notice it and how much time they need to notice it.
It's risky though. If nobody notices it then the shot is probably too complicated/crowded and therefore it is not well composed.
I have difficulties facing the situation when i love one of my shots but nobody seems to get the point why i shot it at all. It depresses me a bit
Whooops!
I see you noticed... Sorry for my earlier reply.
Yes, I posted this shot partly as a "test". Some people saw it right away, and some others haven't noticed it. Nonetheless, those who noticed will agree it was That moment or never at all
The guy waiting to pay is just an accessory in this picture. Glad you finally noticed MichaelHarris
Well-known
Maybe this one is better:
marke
Well-known
Missed it
Missed it
I have to confess that the reflection just wasn't distinct enough for me to clearly see what was going on. I'm sure that wasn't anything you could control though, as these moments are fleeting, as this one obviously was. But now I know to study more carefully when you post something. Obviously you were quite keen on the activities of the moment, so in that case I would certainly call this a decisive one.
Missed it
I have to confess that the reflection just wasn't distinct enough for me to clearly see what was going on. I'm sure that wasn't anything you could control though, as these moments are fleeting, as this one obviously was. But now I know to study more carefully when you post something.
Obviously you were quite keen on the activities of the moment, so in that case I would certainly call this a decisive one.
Last edited:
ChrisN
Striving
I'm another that does not really understand what a "Decisive Moment" is. For me the term associates itself with dramatic moments captured, like the Pullitzer-prize winning photo by Nick Ut of the young Vietnamese girl whose clothes had been burned from her body by napalm. The impact of that photo was felt around the world.
The few HCB photos I'm familiar with I would describe as capturing not decisive, but interesting or amusing moments. Clever, but not earth-shattering. (No disrespect intended - these have value also, of a different kind.)
Here is one, not a decisive moment, but a deciding moment - two shoppers at this morning's market trying to decide whether to buy a pair of shoes. She wanted them; he was not so enthusiastic!
The few HCB photos I'm familiar with I would describe as capturing not decisive, but interesting or amusing moments. Clever, but not earth-shattering. (No disrespect intended - these have value also, of a different kind.)
Here is one, not a decisive moment, but a deciding moment - two shoppers at this morning's market trying to decide whether to buy a pair of shoes. She wanted them; he was not so enthusiastic!
Attachments
Last edited:
foto_fool
Well-known
Marc-A: when HCB used the term "decisive moment" was he thinking in English or French? As a native English speaker, would I use "critical moment" or "crucial moment" instead? Or perhaps "defining moment". Is this the moment when your subject bends to pick up his bread, or when he first drops it?
IMHO Ned certainly captured a crucial moment. I commented that it was not man-jumping-over-puddle decisive, because in Ned's excellent snap it is complicated to see the defining action. What first drew my eye to it was the look of the guy in the street - the very definition of "I'm not getting involved."
- John
IMHO Ned certainly captured a crucial moment. I commented that it was not man-jumping-over-puddle decisive, because in Ned's excellent snap it is complicated to see the defining action. What first drew my eye to it was the look of the guy in the street - the very definition of "I'm not getting involved."
- John
noimmunity
scratch my niche
F%$# the Decisive Moment--Time for a critique and new concept!
F%$# the Decisive Moment--Time for a critique and new concept!
It's funny to see this thread now, because I have been thinking a lot recently about starting one that is a critique of the practice of the "decisive moment".
I'm not going to try your patience with a specialist's viewpoint, but I will say that I find the idea of the "decisive moment" to be an anachronistic concept whose founding assumptions do not correspond to the way either social relations or collective passions and sensibilities are organized today. In fact, the only thing that is "decisive" about the aesthetics of the "decisive moment" today is its irrevocable disappearance AND the huge nostalgia that apparently accompanies this disappearance.
I suggest we have to contextualize the aesthetics of the "decisive moment" in relation to society, economy and politics. As a practice and not just a concept, "the decisive moment" is not just an aesthetics of the image, but a very condensed series of assumptions that FRAMES THE IDENTITY OF AN EVENT. The aesthetics of the "decisive moment" cannot be separated from ideas about individuality, property, labor and the image of man that for the most part dovetail with notions of possessive individualism, national sovereignty, and anthropological difference inherited from the Enlightenment that defined the high modernity of industrial capitalism.
However, fundamental changes in the mode of production since the 1970s--i.e., the transition from industrial capitalism to cognitive capitalism (usually called "knowledge economy" in the anglophone countries)--have led us to a very new type of social organization, based more on disorganized networks and flexible accumulation than strict models of command and control and mass production. It is very difficult for us now to say where is the actual site of "decision" in society today. We have arrived, in fact, at a point where the standard modernist aesthetics (reflected in the concept of a "decisive" moment) just doesn't correspond to our lived reality.
To put it in a nutshell, whereas the fundamental question of cultural production during the era of industrial capitalism (which was also a period of imperialism, colonialism, differential development, war and revolution) was "who am I (or who are we)?", the fundamental question of our current era is going to be "what can we become?"
The aesethic behind much of what is being called "decisive moment" here today is what I would call "spectacular ethnicization" or more generally "spectacular anthropologization" (which includes gender, race, class etc). It highlights the former question (who are we? or again, who are they?) rather than the latter (what can we become?), and as such deny the possibility that a) objects of the ethnic gaze could be become subjects of unprecedented new innovation, and b) that the viewers of these photos, regardless of their anthropological coding, must share responsibility to become something new and different. To a certain extent "spectacular ethnicization" is practically unavoidable in our era, and within that domain there are photographers who excel and command my admiration. But this is still very far from an aesthetics that could intervene in the field of images or figures of Man and contribute to the creation of something that is really new, really in the process of becoming.
To my mind the documentary style of Claude Lanzmann ("Shoah") and the photography of Philippe Bazin are exemplary in going beyond the tired notion of "decisive moment".
F%$# the Decisive Moment--Time for a critique and new concept!
It's funny to see this thread now, because I have been thinking a lot recently about starting one that is a critique of the practice of the "decisive moment".
I'm not going to try your patience with a specialist's viewpoint, but I will say that I find the idea of the "decisive moment" to be an anachronistic concept whose founding assumptions do not correspond to the way either social relations or collective passions and sensibilities are organized today. In fact, the only thing that is "decisive" about the aesthetics of the "decisive moment" today is its irrevocable disappearance AND the huge nostalgia that apparently accompanies this disappearance.
I suggest we have to contextualize the aesthetics of the "decisive moment" in relation to society, economy and politics. As a practice and not just a concept, "the decisive moment" is not just an aesthetics of the image, but a very condensed series of assumptions that FRAMES THE IDENTITY OF AN EVENT. The aesthetics of the "decisive moment" cannot be separated from ideas about individuality, property, labor and the image of man that for the most part dovetail with notions of possessive individualism, national sovereignty, and anthropological difference inherited from the Enlightenment that defined the high modernity of industrial capitalism.
However, fundamental changes in the mode of production since the 1970s--i.e., the transition from industrial capitalism to cognitive capitalism (usually called "knowledge economy" in the anglophone countries)--have led us to a very new type of social organization, based more on disorganized networks and flexible accumulation than strict models of command and control and mass production. It is very difficult for us now to say where is the actual site of "decision" in society today. We have arrived, in fact, at a point where the standard modernist aesthetics (reflected in the concept of a "decisive" moment) just doesn't correspond to our lived reality.
To put it in a nutshell, whereas the fundamental question of cultural production during the era of industrial capitalism (which was also a period of imperialism, colonialism, differential development, war and revolution) was "who am I (or who are we)?", the fundamental question of our current era is going to be "what can we become?"
The aesethic behind much of what is being called "decisive moment" here today is what I would call "spectacular ethnicization" or more generally "spectacular anthropologization" (which includes gender, race, class etc). It highlights the former question (who are we? or again, who are they?) rather than the latter (what can we become?), and as such deny the possibility that a) objects of the ethnic gaze could be become subjects of unprecedented new innovation, and b) that the viewers of these photos, regardless of their anthropological coding, must share responsibility to become something new and different. To a certain extent "spectacular ethnicization" is practically unavoidable in our era, and within that domain there are photographers who excel and command my admiration. But this is still very far from an aesthetics that could intervene in the field of images or figures of Man and contribute to the creation of something that is really new, really in the process of becoming.
To my mind the documentary style of Claude Lanzmann ("Shoah") and the photography of Philippe Bazin are exemplary in going beyond the tired notion of "decisive moment".
Last edited:
northpole
Established
Sorry, you just did. Peter
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
Chris: you see THAT is what i was talking about before.
Although you did give a background story on your shot for some strange reason, the shot itself shows an interesting moment and one can clearly see what the idea behind is, what is happening there. The facial expressions, the scene, makes the shot interesting.
Although you did give a background story on your shot for some strange reason, the shot itself shows an interesting moment and one can clearly see what the idea behind is, what is happening there. The facial expressions, the scene, makes the shot interesting.
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
noimmunity: have you maybe spoken to Cartier-Bresson before he definitely returned to drawing???
Sparrow
Mentor
Am I correct in thinking HBC wanted to call it “snapshots” rather than “decisive moments”?
I seem to recall reading that somewhere and a publisher or translator altered it
I seem to recall reading that somewhere and a publisher or translator altered it
sirius
Well-known
"There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture.
Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you,
and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.
That is the moment the photographer is creative" Oop!
The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."
Henri Cartier-Bresson
I associate the "decisive moment" with the photography of HCB and, for the most part, with his tradition carried on by Magnum photographers. There were three things that really impressed me about his work. There was a gestault in his work that was very much like the great painters of history. His compositions were masterful in their geometry and formal language, and that was harnessed---with a surreal slant---to make engaging images which also reveals something about the human condition.
I agree that any kind of photography has a critical moment where things align and reveal themselves. I associate "the decisive moment" not with its literal semantic meaning, but with the particular meaning that Henri imbuded it with, as I discussed above. All other pictures that claim to be "decisive moments" need to measure up to HCBs standard, as I think is seen in many Life, Magnum, VII, and national geo photographers.
Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you,
and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.
That is the moment the photographer is creative" Oop!
The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."
Henri Cartier-Bresson
I associate the "decisive moment" with the photography of HCB and, for the most part, with his tradition carried on by Magnum photographers. There were three things that really impressed me about his work. There was a gestault in his work that was very much like the great painters of history. His compositions were masterful in their geometry and formal language, and that was harnessed---with a surreal slant---to make engaging images which also reveals something about the human condition.
I agree that any kind of photography has a critical moment where things align and reveal themselves. I associate "the decisive moment" not with its literal semantic meaning, but with the particular meaning that Henri imbuded it with, as I discussed above. All other pictures that claim to be "decisive moments" need to measure up to HCBs standard, as I think is seen in many Life, Magnum, VII, and national geo photographers.
Last edited:
BillP
Rangefinder General
Ok, here is my Decisive Moment. You don't have to take my word for it, because it won the Barnack Challenge over on the LUF for just that theme.
Regards,
Bill
Regards,
Bill
sirius
Well-known
OK Nikonwebmaster. Yes, it certainly was a turning point in history. Sorry for my confusion, I should have read more closely. I hope you never see another decisve moment like that again.
Last edited:
foto_fool
Well-known
Notwithstanding noimmunitiy's exhortation to abandon this disnoaur concept and turn every shutter trip into an expression of struggle over race, ethnicity, class and gender, I'm think I'm going to stand pat for now. I just like making images and find a classical inspiration in the philosophy of "the moment".
Sparrow - I thought HCB's English-language publisher created the "Decicive Moment" book title out of whole cloth.
Sirius - HCB also said "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression."
This shares philosophical space with elements of bushido - eliminate the barrier between thought and deed, and then eliminate the thought. The recognition that the photogrpher and subject are both critical to the same moment is neither trite nor banal.
Just my two cents - John
Sparrow - I thought HCB's English-language publisher created the "Decicive Moment" book title out of whole cloth.
Sirius - HCB also said "To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms that give that event its proper expression."
This shares philosophical space with elements of bushido - eliminate the barrier between thought and deed, and then eliminate the thought. The recognition that the photogrpher and subject are both critical to the same moment is neither trite nor banal.
Just my two cents - John