Marc-A.
I Shoot Film
foto_fool said:
Hi John,
I can answer only your first question: he thought in French, "instant décisif". Now "décisif" can be translated "decisive" or "critical". I think - but I'm not positive - that "decisive" is closer to what HCB meant by "décisif". BTW, there's nothing Critical in his decisive moment.
noimmunity: you made a very interesting point, but I'm not convinced by the contextualist interpretation; I've never been ... historical/sociological circumstances are very important to explain human activity, but they provide only a partial and incomplete explanation of it. Well, it's my philosophical stand.
Sirius: thanks for recalling HCB's definition. Definitely, I interpret what he called a decisive moment as a photographical epiphany. Something is revealed, which has remained invisible until the photographer's eyes saw it.
BillP: superb picture.
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Marc-A.
I Shoot Film
sirius said:
The translation is correct
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
I just watched 10 Questions for the Daila Lama (wonderful film) again, so the first one, Avotius, is especially meaningful to me right now. All are very good.
Ned, I really like your framing/cropping.
Ned, I really like your framing/cropping.
foto_fool
Well-known
A little Googling closes the circle: from an April 2005 RFF discussion (in which pherdinand was a participant) - 'The original expression used by HCB in his ´52 book is "Il n'y a rien en ce monde qui n'ait pas un moment décisif" - "there is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment", and it is attibuted to the Cardinal de Retz, who lived in the time between Richelieu and Mazarin (the prime-ministers respectively of Louis XIII and Louis XIV)... the full citation: "Il n'y a rien en ce monde qui n'ait pas un moment décisif, et le chef d'œuvre de la bonne conduite est de connaître et de prendre ce moment". Badly translated it becomes: "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment and the masterpiece of good ruling is to know and seize this moment" So HCB used (half of) what was basically a political quote in the best Machiavel tradition to synthesize his thoughts about photography.'
Simon (of Simon & Schuster) lifted the title for the US edition from HCB's quotation of this phrase in his text.
- John
Simon (of Simon & Schuster) lifted the title for the US edition from HCB's quotation of this phrase in his text.
- John
Marc-A.
I Shoot Film
foto_fool said:
Excellent John
Just a detail though: - HCB use the expression "instant décisif" not "moment décisif" ... doesn't change anything.
- Retz's quotation is "Il n'y a rien en ce monde qui n'ait un moment décisif" (ther's no "pas") ... doesn't change anything either.
dougiec29
Member
Quote from HCB: "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."BillP said:
So for a decisive moment, I see an event that is significant on some level (doesn't have to be world changing), where the visual elements in the photo complement or juxtapose each other in an interesting way. Bill's photo is a great example, when the street performer is about to catch or drop his hat (and everyone in the photo is anxious to see which) while the statue in the backgroud mirrors the performer's form.
foto_fool
Well-known
Marc - thanks, but it was nothing. I was just cutting and pasting from the archive.
Since I have the floor for the moment I thought I would explain how I have internalized this concept. I find an adaptation of the "rhetorical square" to be a framework that serves well to reveal the relationsips between elements of the "crucial moment". The four corners of the square are the actors (photographer and subject) and the actions. In the case of the photographer the action is pretty much constrained to "shoot the frame" while the action of the subject could be pretty much anything.
To me the interesting point is the potential relations demonstrated by the diagonals of the square. On some level the subject is just as much responsible for tripping the shutter as the photographer. And the presence of the photographer always affects the action of the decisive moment: 1) there is no "moment" if the photographer is not there, and sometimes 2) the presence of the photographer directly influences the subject's actions. Some dude named Heisenberg said something like "the act of observation affects what is being observed."
I think of Ned's great nighttime bus shot. Did the guy looking directly into the lens see Ned snapping the frame?
- John
Since I have the floor for the moment I thought I would explain how I have internalized this concept. I find an adaptation of the "rhetorical square" to be a framework that serves well to reveal the relationsips between elements of the "crucial moment". The four corners of the square are the actors (photographer and subject) and the actions. In the case of the photographer the action is pretty much constrained to "shoot the frame" while the action of the subject could be pretty much anything.
To me the interesting point is the potential relations demonstrated by the diagonals of the square. On some level the subject is just as much responsible for tripping the shutter as the photographer. And the presence of the photographer always affects the action of the decisive moment: 1) there is no "moment" if the photographer is not there, and sometimes 2) the presence of the photographer directly influences the subject's actions. Some dude named Heisenberg said something like "the act of observation affects what is being observed."
I think of Ned's great nighttime bus shot. Did the guy looking directly into the lens see Ned snapping the frame?
- John
HSI
The Fourth
Not going to read, but going to contribute.
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Leica M3, DR Summicron, HP5+ @ 1600
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Leica M3, DR Summicron, HP5+ @ 1600
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
oh no. Not the heisenberg dude again.
The Heisenberg dude was talking about things that are trillion times smaller. About things that can pass through two holes simultaneously.
It has nothing - NOTHING AT ALL - to do with us, or the subject of the discussion.
The Heisenberg dude was talking about things that are trillion times smaller. About things that can pass through two holes simultaneously.
It has nothing - NOTHING AT ALL - to do with us, or the subject of the discussion.
foto_fool
Well-known
Oy pherdinand - yes, it is coincidence that agglomerations of particles exhibit behaviors that mimic the consequence of attempting to measure the position/momentum of the individual particles.
- John
- John
V
varjag
Guest
Noimmunity, your illustration shows that yours respectful and HCB's understanding of what constitutes "decisive moment" couldn't be farther apart.
HCB talked about capturing aesthetic culmination of an event. In fact he not just talked, he was also pretty good at actually doing that.
What he meant by decisive moment can be seen in his corpus of work. Look at the photos!
Of course we always can twist out the words said by a particular person half a century ago to prove some hypothetic point we make on the spot. That's the nature (and a drawback) of communicating in a natural language. But why?
HCB talked about capturing aesthetic culmination of an event. In fact he not just talked, he was also pretty good at actually doing that.
What he meant by decisive moment can be seen in his corpus of work. Look at the photos!
Of course we always can twist out the words said by a particular person half a century ago to prove some hypothetic point we make on the spot. That's the nature (and a drawback) of communicating in a natural language. But why?
noimmunity
scratch my niche
In terms of both the images themselves and the history of the magnum group, it may have been HCB who coined the term, but Robert Capa was surely the definitive master of the "decisive moment". Capa's much-celebrated photo "Death of a Loyalist Militiaman" (1936) could not by any means have claimed to capture a decisive turning point in the Spanish Civil War, yet there is no question that the image itself became emblematic of that entire event while at the same time being an example of the consummate art of photographic framing. To that extent, he lives up to HCB's own definition of the "decisive moment" much more faithfully than HCB.
V
varjag
Guest
There's nothing that prevents anyone from using those same two words for culmination of a sports performance, ecstatic climax, or turning point of history. However, that would be your own version of "decisive moment", not really affecting HCB's definition of it.
The culmination of visual, interposition of form and shape apparent in most of Cartier-Bresson photography only occasionally coincides with importance of event. How important for you a man jumping over a puddle? A riding cyclist? A dude in glasses peeking out of barn door? A few women handing scissors and combs around?
There is a beauty in those photos and moment captured, but to see that you have to look on the photos, rather than try to pin those on timeline of history or to postmodernist metaphysics.
The culmination of visual, interposition of form and shape apparent in most of Cartier-Bresson photography only occasionally coincides with importance of event. How important for you a man jumping over a puddle? A riding cyclist? A dude in glasses peeking out of barn door? A few women handing scissors and combs around?
There is a beauty in those photos and moment captured, but to see that you have to look on the photos, rather than try to pin those on timeline of history or to postmodernist metaphysics.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
varjag said:
Ironically, it is easy for you to tell others to try looking harder, yet you cannot even read what HCB wrote. Looking and Reading can go together, you know! HCB's definition of the "decisive moment" is pretty darned clear. It includes "the importance of event" as well as questions of form and expression. (To repeat, he 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."). Judging by his own definition, I don't think the photo of a man jumping over a puddle (a photo which I admire for many reasons) fits his own stated definition of what a "decisive moment" for photograhpy is. But then again, it could, depending on what context it is framed in. Before you tell me this is something imposed or "pinned" upon the photo from outside, I would ask you to consider whether any work of art can exist without a frame? I did work for a documentary exhibition about Taiwan many years ago that took "suspension" as the key theme because it reflects the unsettled and suspended question of Taiwan's international status, yet almost all the images (some of which were formally like a fellow stepping over a puddle) were from everyday life far removed (at first glance) from international politics of any sort.
I think perhaps the saddest thing of all is that people nowadays try to pit images against ideas, showing against telling, in the hope of insulating themselves and cutting themselves off from the fascinating interconnections between the burning questions that occupy our era. When you think about it, it is in the very nature of the image to want to create relationships that jump off the page or fly off the screen or extend beyond the frame. Photography could not exist without that play between the frame and its outside, between the "image" and "reality". Images are all about exposure, not creating forms of immunity such as timeless beauty.
So yeah, as far as the "decisive moment" defined by HCB goes, I'll take Robert Capa any day over HCB as the definitive example.
V
varjag
Guest
Noimmunity, strictly speaking "significance" and "importance" are not synonymous. Significance includes such nuances as "a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred", or "the message that is intended or expressed or signified".
You prefer to treat it as importance, well it's your call. My point was if we take as context the work of HCB himself, it's pretty clear what sort of moment he was after. You might not like it, just as I don't like fuzzy postmodernist rhetoric, but don't be picky on the dead gentleman for not living up to your standards of art.
You prefer to treat it as importance, well it's your call. My point was if we take as context the work of HCB himself, it's pretty clear what sort of moment he was after. You might not like it, just as I don't like fuzzy postmodernist rhetoric, but don't be picky on the dead gentleman for not living up to your standards of art.
Finder
Veteran
noimmunity said:
Why? As an individual working on individual work, I do not need a social, economic, or political relationship to what I do. You are creating something that does not follow.
I would say that is not true. There is no reason that this idea is trying to create any identity. It can simply be showing what is happening at a moment.
Proof for this statement comes from where? I see nothing that connects Carier Bresson's comment with this.
You are misinterpreting Cartier Bression's comment. You are also trying very weakly to link ideas and concepts that are unrelated. As far as photography, every photograph is a moment that the artist has decides to exhibit.
My lived reality is also a collection of decisive moments. So your assumptions are false.
Here again proof for these assumptions and what connection is there to a photograph?
Maybe you don't understand the decisive moment and that is why you are having a problem with it. It is not a political declaration.
Well, if you are saying that art is simply a reflection of social and political ideas, how can you achieve something new? Why is new expression the goal of art? There is little proof of that.
Your other assumprtion that the artistic process is not one of becoming, then I would say you don't know anything about art. The is a main focus of the artist - being, 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".[/QUOTE]
I did some searching on Bazin. I am surprised you think this reflects your ideas. I see nothing new about his work. It shows nothing about "becoming" just what is - a decisive moment.
Finder
Veteran
noimmunity said:Finally, I have a photo that I'd like to share. I'm undecided whether it can really bear the burden of the weight of this discussion, but it does express something that I'd like to see more (and better) of. The photo was taken at an aboriginal Harvest Festival, but it shows the subjects in a moment of ecstatic surprise.
And in what way is this something different from what Cartier Bresson was doing?
Sparrow
Veteran
HBC would have cropped the hand from the left hand corner?
:angel:
:angel: