NB23 said:
I'm not a huge Bresson fan, personally. I'm having a hard time seeign that "decisive moment" in his pictures... Of course, I maybe need to be educated a little more, regarding his work.
I kind of agreed at first. Then I went back and really looked at the images a second time, looking for something I might be missing. Bresson was a painter and sketcher more than a photographer, apparently, and his compositions show that.
Number 11, in particular - the shadows back and forth on the ground. They would only look that way for a short time each day, meaning he either tripped across the scene or waited for the sun to be in the right spot and the shaodows to be spaced that way.
The man in number 16 unconsciously, in a moment of weariness, mirroring the graffiti on the wall behind him.
Number 26 is probably one of the most famous examples of a "decisive moment." He had to watch until the guy made his little jump into the puddle. There wouldn't have been time to shoot off 5 or so shots and pick the best of the series. I might have tried to capture the splash when the man's foot hit the water, but catching the shot just as the man's reflection cleared the ladder on the ground was almost genius. Not that he necessarily was going for that shot, but it seems he might have been. It's a picture a man might have painted.
The boy trying to steal a kiss in Number 51. A timeless moment instantly recognizable (well, to me, anyway
🙂 ). No doubt a moment before or a moment after, the scene had changed, the gap between the two less telegraphic.
Number 64, where the women mirror the hanging cloth. Enough so it wasn't immediately apparent they
were women.
Number 88, where the white space on the top so drastically contrasts with the incomprehensible mayhem of the men on the bottom portion.
A lot of his images have the aspect of a tableau, not a snapshot in time. It's almost as if all that happened before and after is irrelevant, merely set-up for the shot. I'm thinking that's where the title came from.
