A brief explanation of the idea behind "The Decisive Moment"

ebino said:
Very interesting.

But, is photography art?
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This thread started off reasonably well - but here we're at the point of pointlessness.

The question makes me think of Karl Valentin, who pointed out that "everything has already been said, just not yet by everyone."
 
When I go out and shoot, I sometimes have something in mind. Sometimes I don't at all. But I always make sure I'm ready and my eyes are open in case the moment arrives. I've captured decisive moments many times and people seem to think them make up the best of my work. But I don't necessarily go on the hunt for them all the time. As we all know they happen when they happen.
 
RayPA said:
But that's easy enough to do. The work of his contemporaries is just as available to us as his work.

I'm not sure what you mean by "originators". Originator of what?
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One of the originators of small camera usage in the streets capturing decisive moments.
 
Cartier-Bresson certainly emphasized composition. This might or might not require a decisive moment. The seeing required might or might not then have a time element that is critical. In a portrait it will be important, but only as the culmination of an interaction and a discernment of character that was usually evident. The decisive moment becomes then an almost trivial component of the process, inevitable as a consequence of experience and refinement of perception. It is like saying that Federer knows just when to hit the ball. F8 and be there.
 
Nikkor AIS said:
There are an infinite number of moments in any given place and time, but there is only "one" decisive moment.
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Well, that is debatable. I am a animator by training, and the HCB decisive moments look a little bit too much like animation keyframes. He doubtlessly developed a skill at shooting pictures that are well-composed while at the extremes of the dynamics of some action - but not that many of his shots are of a singularity. I can imagine for most of HCB's most popular shots how they might have been serialized - a girl jumping over a puddle? Heck, two shots per step and you can have a computer synthesize her walk. Or stay near that puddle and at the end of the day you'll have enough footage of jumping girls to montage a entire tap dance musical prancing around puddles...

That is, there very often is no lack of decisive moments. I've always found the indecisive moment more interesting - it is easy to identify (and agree upon) when things fall into a composed structure, and where the high and low points in a dynamic tension are. It is much harder to formulate a good theory for the time and space in between decisive moments (or good pictures) that goes beyond a mere negation of the latter...
 
Thanks Dude :). I just watched the Dudes movie the other day. I still laugh out loud, even though I've seen it a dozen times.




Nikkor 300 2.0 IF-ED AIS on Nikon D3
 
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