Decisive moment?

[shadowfox]

Wow, this thread is interesting with all the pictures up to the heavy-philosophical dicsussion about decisive moments.

To me, it's simply a decisive moment: a *moment* that is decisively funny, scary, memorable, poignant, sad, interesting, ... (ad more adjectives here)

Of course it means different thing to different people, but beauty is when more people agree that it's beautiful than not.

To that I say, more pictures please ...

oh, I forgot my feeble attempt at capturing one:

I call it "Animated"

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I think that as long as people think of this as "a decisive moment":

...the argument will never end. It's as petty as arguing "what common sense means". To those who have it, know it, to those who don't, don't.

 

[Finder]

I think that as long as people think of this as "a decisive moment":

...the argument will never end. It's as petty as arguing "what common sense means". To those who have it, know it, to those who don't, don't.

You sure this is not a "becoming" thing.

 

[Ororaro]

I think that as long as people think of this as "a decisive moment":

...the argument will never end. It's as petty as arguing "what common sense means". To those who have it, know it, to those who don't, don't.

The problem is deeper then that. Usually, those who don't have it think they have it and those who have it know that those who don't have it, don't, despite the fact that they think they do. So, in real life, everybody think they have it. Common sense is everywhere.

Now, who is right or who is wrong?

 

[OurManInTangier]

I have alot of time for HCB's photography but I think his words worry people a little too much. That's why I've always like Elliott Erwitt's easy going approach to his work, he insists that his photographs are snaps. If I could show one iota of the humour and warmth that he does while avoiding too much in pretension or ambiguous terms i'd be very happy.

I'm rubbish at putting my photos into threads but here goes, simply so you can decide Decisive Moment, Snap....or Crap

 

[tomasis]

It was a joke…………..sorry

naah, I got something to say thanks to you

I agree that he was quite secretive with his remarks but I understand him very well because his works speak much more than his own words which came out of desperation of explaining the meaning for picture blind people. It is more like Zen

 

[tomasis]

Erwitts shoots are genial! Winogrand is cool

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Now, who is right or who is wrong?

Those who say they are right all the time, are wrong, those who say they are wrong all the time, are wrong.

Wars have been waged and nations have been razed to the ground fueled by little "absolute truths".

But at least I know what a duck isn't. But there will always be people trying to prove otherwise, so I can never be sure that I will always know what a duck isn't.

Had I ever done drugs I'd know which one to use to expand on that.

But I hear about some "kool-aid"; I should start drinking it. Some would say that's the only thing I drink...and the discussion goes on...

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

You sure this is not a "becoming" thing.

Your metaphysical insight blows my mind, grasshopper. :angel:

 

[noimmunity]

Not the hand!!!

Not the hand!!!

HBC would have cropped the hand from the left hand corner?

Crop the hand??? NOT THE HAND!!! That hand holding a spoon is what makes the photo! Makes it more of a participatory event!

HCB again: "Pour « signifier » le monde, il faut se sentir impliqué dans ce que l'on découpe à travers le viseur." (In order to "signify" the world, it is necessary to feel implicated in that which one cuts in half through the viewfinder).

I love that picture of Daffy Duck! Notice, too, the triangulation of the gaze: the way in which Bugs Bunny is looking at Daffy, while Daffy's eyes are focused on us, even while his mouth is speaking the other way. And who are we looking at at? Some people obviously feel like they are looking at Daffy along with Bugs, vicariously sharing Bugs' rather normative point of view and perhaps even his sarcastic grin. But others may find themselves wondering, as I do, what we can do to make the relation between Bugs, Daffy and the viewer become something else! Daffy holds the clue: Forked tongues (i.e., the ability to speak in more than one language, and preferably in more than just former imperial languages) and eyes in the back of one's head (i.e., the ability to invent a new kind of vision)---isn't that what we need nowadays!

fuzzy postmodernist rhetoric

If the discussion of a shift in modes of production and the transition from industrial capitalism to k-economy (or cognitive capitalism) seems "fuzzy" to you, I suppose that's another 'reason' to justify the cost of Leica glass. You belong in the delirium of the image described by Lucretius, who, at the beginning of De Natura rerum, talks about the sweet feeling one experiences when looking at a sinking ship from the safety of a nearby shore. This neutralizing effect of the image is well known.

It might be apposite to mention, by the way, that even HCB took time off from his sketching to go and join street protests against the illegal and disastrous intervention in Iraq.

But lest anybody come along and point the finger, or crop the hand, let me repeat again I do not advocate the position that art must be judged by politics, nor even that art somehow reflects society and/or politics. The ease with which people keep pulling out these tired old categories is amazing! Most of these ideas were already demolished by modernist avant-garde artists and writers--well before the postmodernists! What I am saying is the altogether bland and widely accepted idea (for people who have continued reading authors after 1965) that certain aesthetic concepts and practices share and/or challenge fundamental assumptions with the socio-political ideas and practices of their age. In the concept of the decisive moment, I see shared assumptions with the political and metaphysical discourse of sovereignty. Sovereibnty, it is well known, is undergoing deep and profound transformations in our era.

But perhaps I am just foolish to ask a bunch of people who still cherish film, as I do, to address the startling changes and innovations now apace in our society. Considering how much I love film and how much respect I have for the people here (who have contributed enormously to my film appetite), I will let biogons be biogons and hold me silence.

-jon

 

[Finder]

But perhaps I am just foolish to ask a bunch of people who still cherish film, as I do, to address the startling changes and innovations now apace in our society.

Jon, are you perhaps implying we are not smart enough to talk with you? Are we just stubborn luddites who are unaware with the world around us?

What I am saying is the altogether bland and widely accepted idea (for people who have continued reading authors after 1965) that certain aesthetic concepts and practices share and/or challenge fundamental assumptions with the socio-political ideas and practices of their age. In the concept of the decisive moment, I see shared assumptions with the political and metaphysical discourse of sovereignty. Sovereibnty, it is well known, is undergoing deep and profound transformations in our era.

You make statements like this which are just a bunch of words. Your statement just says the world in which I live affects me and affects my work. So what! And that idea has been around before 1965.

As far as your interpretation of Cartier Bresson's statement on the decisive moment, can you be more specific - we are not but 'umble pirates and are not used to such fine words. I see no such connection with sovereignty. That is if you can lower yourself to converse with such backward folk.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

As far as your interpretation of Cartier Bresson's statement on the decisive moment, can you be more specific - we are not but 'umble pirates and are not used to such fine words. I see no such connection with sovereignty. That is if you can lower yourself to converse with such backward folk.

Yarr! I's goin' to reeload some of that fine plaster of Paris onto my Silver plates, right after me sails and raids a cargo ship for food. It'd be a mighty decisive moment for me stomach. Yarrr.

 

[Finder]

Yarr! I's goin' to reeload some of that fine plaster of Paris onto my Silver plates, right after me sails and raids a cargo ship for food. It'd be a mighty decisive moment for me stomach. Yarrr.

That's right, mateys. It is international talk like a rangefindarr photographarr day.


:angel:

 

[iridium7777]

great post and great pictures. i don't know what a decisive moment is, perhaps i can play my immigrant card and excuse english not being my first language when i'm confused by 'decisive' and not get insulted.

I have alot of time for HCB's photography but I think his words worry people a little too much. That's why I've always like Elliott Erwitt's easy going approach to his work, he insists that his photographs are snaps. If I could show one iota of the humour and warmth that he does while avoiding too much in pretension or ambiguous terms i'd be very happy.

I'm rubbish at putting my photos into threads but here goes, simply so you can decide Decisive Moment, Snap....or Crap