Has the decisive moment passed?

I'd rather not make overly pretentious statements about the philosophical weight of HCB's photographs and their overall currency, or non-currency. I'd rather just look at the book (first time I've had the opportunity since I was never able to obtain a copy of the original) and see what they say to me.

I find myself somewhat out of sync with a lot of today's aesthetic, which often seems focused on over-statement and sensationalism. But there is a lot of appealing work being made today as well. Will it stand the test of time and shifting cultural milieu? I don't know.

The only thing I know for certain is that great work happens with a good eye, good technique, deep intent, and perseverance. HCB's photography meets those criteria, and was a founding influence on today's aesthetic whether it itself is current or historical.

G
 
Ko.Fe. said:
Next time do you homework better.

https://crea2010.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/henri-cartier-bresson/

Picture # two.
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<sarcasm>Right, of course, a kiss can never be a decisive moment!</sarcasm>

Obviously the decisive moment varies from event to event, dependent on the story - both that occurring in reality and that which the photographer wishes to emphasise.

If an event revolves around a kiss, the decisive moment thus may or may not be the kiss.
 
The recurring HCB debates suffer from the same defect: ''Intellectual noise'' which resembles ''digital noise''. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to develop a lightroom fix to deal with it.

On the bottom of the same Guardian page, I found a link to a much more interesting story: ''We are family, Nicholas Nixon's 40 years photographing the Brown sisters''. http://www.theguardian.com/artandde...s-nixon-40-years-brown-sisters-portraits-moma

Merry Xmas everyone!
 
The Grauniad at its worst: one size fits all, slightly sneering ("Cartier-Bresson continues to cast a long shadow in the public, if not the contemporary photographic, consciousness"), teleological ("Frank and Eggleston signalled the future"), and opinion masquerading as fact. Note that the only question he asks is at the very end, where he effectively asks if it is worth buying/reading the book, and implies that it isn't. The rest of the time he is telling us how clever he is, not least by trotting out a few well-worn names who might be regarded by others as the "usual suspects" for those who are unsuccessfully trying to establish their credentials as cognoscenti of photography.

Cheers,

R.
 
gb hill said:
I saw the exhibit in Atlanta. To me, his photo's had more of a historical impact than anything else. They were the "decisive moment" through his eyes. The decisive moment is simply the instance I frame the subject & press the shutter. What we view to photograph is different for each individual. To try & imitate any well known photographer, you are only robbing yourself from the person you are & personality as a photographer. His book coming out is only about him & what he saw as a photographer in his time of life. We must document our time so move on with it.
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Thanks you!

Back to shooting people randomly walking around...
 
The decisive moment was probably originally developed by Andre Kertesz – see AK's Meudon, 1928 with train passing overhead on a viaduct.

Cartier Bresson being associated with the decisive moment may have made him a less interesting photographer as time went on – I always found his early photographs of 1933 and 1934 in Mexico and Spain, under the influence of the surrealists where there's a kind of elasticity of time, the most moving of all his work.

But perhaps you could say what Cartier-Bresson did was to make poetry out of a banal or overlooked environment, a kind of photography which Winogrand and Eggleston continued. So in that sense what C-B did is still practiced.
 
photomoof said:
I did find the phase "the reason his photographs often feel numbly impersonal " useful to help me put in words, why I tend to personally dismiss almost all random photography, HCB or Winogrand. I don't see journalism in his work -- but I am sure that is just me, many do.

And by no means was all of HCB's work random, but much of it was.

I just suppose his work no longer moves me the way it did when I was 20.
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No, you're not alone in that. I fail to see any "journalism" in it whatever way you define journalism. More a good marketing to sell random photos.
 
RichC said:
<sarcasm>Right, of course, a kiss can never be a decisive moment!</sarcasm>

Obviously the decisive moment varies from event to event, dependent on the story - both that occurring in reality and that which the photographer wishes to emphasise.

If an event revolves around a kiss, the decisive moment thus may or may not be the kiss.
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Sometimes, what we don't show is more important than what we do show.
 
To me HCB and others have just shown me that the single slice of life that you want to take, will cause you, and others to connect with it in some way.
Some people love a picture they can connect with, they can relate to it, it brings back memories.
Others who look at the same picture have nothing, the picture does nothing for them.
So the decisive moment really is up to the individual viewing not necessarily the photographer trying to capture the slice of life.

Of course, the photographer will try to capture a decisive moment, a slice of time that captures and emotion a reaction a feeling between a few people or a person and the environment.
But it is the viewer that will need to connect with the picture to make it successful. So a successful picture for one person, is a failure for another.
To the Photographer, all the keepers, after the curling, are successful... but, not all will be successful to all views.

I think today's photography is expanding on what the photographer is trying to capture.
It might be a decisive moment, it might be people and the environment that is not necessarily a decisive moment in one sense,
but in another sense has a more of a man versus environment emotion.

We all look at other peoples successful work in the beginning of our photography training whether it be self taught or taught by schools and teachers.
And we all try to copy their style or some of their style, but as we progress in our own understanding as we fine tune that, then our style becomes more to the forefront.
I do not think that the decisive moment is passed, people just record their style of the decisive moment and hopefully the viewers,
a majority of them, can connect with the picture and relate to the picture from their own life experiences.
After all that is what for photography is about, if you are serious about viewing your photography as art.
 
ChrisLivsey said:
Actually I think you will find there are three involved in that particular kiss and the pose of the third is the most important element not the moment of contact or otherwise.
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Agreed. This is the main point of the image.

Speaking of the poses and lefties. Could the gentleman in the picture be Andreas Baader? Looks quite a lot like him when in Paris in 1968.
 
If the decisive moment has passed, what are you about to photograph and why?? Even with landscape photography, elements such as the direction of (and intensity of) light can change and alter the look dramatically.
 
The decisive moment took place for me a long time ago.

She said yes and we're still married!

Have had many, many wonderful moments since then.

Made lots of photographs during many of those moments.

Now it's our grand children who are providing me with the decisive moments of my photographs.
 
silly to think a basic concept has passed, whatever anyone's politics; look at ourmanintangier's photo from the RFF gallery just today:
U8001I1422967916.SEQ.0.jpg


looks pretty stinking decisive to me ...
 
Yes Simon's stuff rocks and his work is all about the moment. Either you build things on sand or like Simon you have a solid foundation. Which will hold up over time.
 
RichC said:
Cartier-Bresson is back – but his decisive moment has passed... http://gu.com/p/44dzc/stw

Another Guardian article. What do you think?

Personally, I feel Cartier-Bresson had a huge impact on photography, helping to establish the dominance of objective photojournalism and also a certain style of photography that borrowed from classical painting in which the picture shows the viewer a moment that captures the essence of a story.

But his time has passed, and photography has moved on, its concerns focused elsewhere. More relevant Magnum photodocumentary photographers are Alec Soth, Mark Power and Trent Parke, to name three at random.

However, many photographers fail to understand Cartier-Bresson's photographs. Most street photographers, including those on RFF, don't get the decisive moment.

Instead, we are shown pictures of the indecisive moment.

Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment is not the moment of high drama - as in "sudden" and "striking". Most so-called "decisive moments" in photography are braggadocio, pictures of the photographer's ego - "admire my skill, my eye, my timing" - with little else to say. Cartier-Bresson would doubtless mutter "non" to these.

Writing can recount an event in its entirety, but a picture has only one frame, a slice of an event. Cartier-Bresson wanted his pictures to tell stories, so he was always careful to freeze time at a crucial point. In painting, this is Diderot’s instant, Lessing’s "pregnant moment".

Imagine a couple kissing. Too many photographers would capture them embracing, lips interlocking – the kiss itself. That is not what Cartier-Bresson would do. That is not the decisive moment, as it is fails to unfold the story for the viewer (inasmuch as a single frame can). Cartier-Bresson would instead picture them a moment before the kiss, eyes locked on each other, lips parted, not quite touching - telling us far more about their passion than the kiss itself. Or he'd capture the moment after - their longing and desperation apparent as they part.

In Cartier-Bresson's own words from his 1952 book "The Decisive Moment" (note my emphasis):

"I craved to seize, in the confines of one single photograph, the whole essence of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes."
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Sure, the article made some good points. It is kinda dated. But it is the foundational inspiration for many of the modern age masters. It is an important book.
 
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