The Psychology of the "Decisive Moment"

[peterm1]

What focal length are you choosing?

It depends a bit on where I am shooting on the day and how I feel. Typically I like short/medium tele lenses -105 and 135 mainly. Enough to give some distance from the subject. But now and then I enjoy using my Nikkor 180mm f2.8 partly for the distance it provides but also because it shoots sumptuous images and when shot at a wide aperture blurs the background beautifully. And sometimes I will take an 80-200mm for the flexibility provided but the Nikkor f2.8 one is big and cumbersome and the slower smaller ones are sometimes too slow for the lighting conditions. So it all depends. A good compromise I have tried recently is an M4/3 camera. The 75mm f1.8 Olympus lens provides a 150mm full frame field of view equivalent and superb sharpness and yet its not really much bigger than some full frame 50mmm lenses. And with tiny lenses like these it is easy to also carry say a 45mm (90mm equivalent) in my pocket and perhaps a 90mm Leica Tele Elmarit as well in case I want something with longer reach.

 

[Richard G]

Interesting article. Such discussions of the decisive moment suggest that there is no other photography.

As for the psychology I think this is very much to the point. That restless sharpness of observation HCB reported, the anticipation, is a part of it. But the 10,000 first photographs and the automatic nature of many successful photographs is fascinating also. If I am out with my wife she is impatient with me bringing a camera. If I can take a shot I have seconds only before I am in trouble again. I have quite a few successful shots born of that time pressured necessity. Years of observation and shooting lead to those moments.

 

[Scrambler]

The comments about background and context are apt. HCB seems to be more involved in selecting the environment and then waiting for people (or person) to make it interesting. I read an online piece a while back about the cyclist photo mentioned above. In seeking to shoot from the same point it turned out the angle was very high - possibly involving standing on something (box, chair). There was a great deal of effort in choosing 95% of that photo, the "decisive moment" was icing on the cake not an accidental event captured at random.

In an gallery display I saw a few years ago the Puddle photo is an exception to HCBs general approach. This photo is cropped. Generally he shot with the edge of the framing as his intended edge of the image - they were all printed to make this clear, with that single exception.

HCBs news photography (he was present when Ghandi was shot) is not as artistically interesting - much more like snapshots. I suppose this underscores that the Decisive Moment approach is planned, specific and often time-intensive, and not suitable for use in a highly active scene like an assassination.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

One thing I think is missing with most street shooters style is the ability to engage the subject head on. So many street shots show me that the shooter was terrified of the subject. They can't handle it if the subject looks at them. I'd imagine they'd run if they were spoken to.

Just look at a lot of the images in the street section here. How many people engage the photographer? How many are shot from (in) the back? How many sleeping, texting or are at a safe distance. You've got to get out of your comfort zone and act like your comfortable and enjoying the experience and convince your subject you are. If you're not you shouldn't be doing it. You should be doing landscapes or photos of your cat.

So many street shots are just empty of emotion, they're just snapshots.

I'm afraid you are too narrowed in your own definition of good street photography. Maybe reviewing of HCB pictures taken on the streets might help you to realize what looking at each other as two stray dogs is not the always and only one solution to be cool. Really, HCB photos have plenty of backs and very safe distance. His photos are not great snapshots, but genios snapshots.

To me if person is engaged with photographer it is often nothing good at all. If you don't know how to take candid close enough without people reacting on you... all you do is practicing in the portraits on the street, but not in the street photography. IMO.












If person is looking at you where is often no story, no emotion at all. Your cat might be better for it 🙂

 

[Michael Markey]

I agree with Ko fe.
Street photography isn`t documentary/street portraiture.

So I don`t want engagement ..... for me its observation and any engagement would affect the shot.
If that doesn`t work and the subject notices and engages then I do so.

Being a sort of voluble chap I find the stand back observation stance more difficult.
I usually end up talking to them and taking their photograph but I don`t regard that as street photography.

That`s taking photographs on the street

 

[ptpdprinter]

There is a lot of mythology surrounding The Decisive Moment. I am looking a an HCB contact sheet for his photo Spain 1933 and it took him at least 16 tries to capture The Decisive Moment for that one. Kind of makes one wonder. Today, would it count if you captured The Decisive Moment with a motor drive or shooting digitally at 10fps?

 

[PKR]

I agree with Ko fe.
Street photography isn`t documentary/street portraiture.

So I don`t want engagement ..... for me its observation and any engagement would affect the shot.
If that doesn`t work and the subject notices and engages then I do so.

Being a sort of voluble chap I find the stand back observation stance more difficult.
I usually end up talking to them and taking their photograph but I don`t regard that as street photography.

That`s taking photographs on the street

Gary Winogrand, who I think was considered a "street photographer", often had conversations with his subjects, sometimes while he was photographing them. If you watch the films made of him working, this becomes evident. Also, Winogrand was a really nice, funny guy in his exchanges with his subjects. HCB may have been more clandestine in his methods, I think. So, different methods, for different people? The whole business with "labels" can be quite restrictive.

 

[Michael Markey]

Gary Winogrand, who I think was considered a "street photographer", often had conversations with his subjects, sometimes while he was photographing them. If you watch the films made of him working, this becomes evident. Also, Winogrand was a really nice, funny guy in his exchanges with his subjects. HCB may have been more clandestine in his methods, I think. So, different methods, for different people?

Yes different methods .
I don`t necessarily stick to one MO myself.

I`m not so sure about Winogrand incidently ... his strategy was entirely the opposite
He famously said that he didn`t want to exist when taking a photograph he wanted to be transparent.

He claimed that Walker Evans and Robert Frank had similar strategies.

The last thing he wanted was to be present in any way in his photographs
In his later years he was shooting through the windows of a moving car.

I just find what you might describe the surreptitious / naive shot to be as valuable has the posed shot.
There`s too much of the photographer about the later.

To me that`s street photography although I realise that that is precisely why some find it uninteresting or think that it could have be executed better.
They are looking for greater involvement .... as I do sometimes ... but that produces a very different outcome.

 

[MikeDimit]

I am not much of a writer here. Sorry🙂
Yet, I do think HCB have the concept of "Decisive moment" regarding photojournalism.
I offer you a shot from yesterday. Most of my folks will read the shot easyly, but I am curious how foreigners with trained photographic eye get/see the shot. I will write history later if you agree. Lets check if we get that decisive moment in practice.

 

[SJACPHOTO]

The Decisive Moment hasn't much to do with pure luck, but describes more the hustle towards your own luck.

You can try to force these decisive moments by spending a lot of time consciously walking through the streets, trying to find these situations.

It has more to do with the photographic eye and the total time investment.

Also found on The Street Photography Blog with the article about the decisive moment

But there are situations I have yet to meet a 2nd time

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Yes different methods .
I don`t necessarily stick to one MO myself.

I`m not so sure about Winogrand incidently ... his strategy was entirely the opposite
He famously said that he didn`t want to exist when taking a photograph he wanted to be transparent.

He claimed that Walker Evans and Robert Frank had similar strategies.

The last thing he wanted was to be present in any way in his photographs
In his later years he was shooting through the windows of a moving car.

I just find what you might describe the surreptitious / naive shot to be as valuable has the posed shot.
There`s too much of the photographer about the later.

To me that`s street photography although I realise that that is precisely why some find it uninteresting or think that it could have be executed better.
They are looking for greater involvement .... as I do sometimes ... but that produces a very different outcome.

I watched videos with Winogrand and I can't recall him to talk constantly with anyone. In few episodes where he was talking with people it was more due to the act of filming this video.

I recently finished translation to Russian the Class Time with Garry Winogrand by OC Garza (this his permission). He has seen Winogrand taking pictures in real life. And it was not so much talk involved on the street.

Few years ago (also with permission) I translated Mason Resnick's My Street Photography Workshop With Garry Winogrand, again, no talk was observed.

And here is the video. https://youtu.be/xHKo-ReWeKA to confirm what Garza and Resnick told us. No talk in the video.

I think, Winogrand was mistaken by Mark Cohen, who gets very close to people and in much intrusive way Winogrand did.
And he talks to people. https://youtu.be/fjmiU18UvK0

 

[aizan]

here's another way of thinking about the "decisive moment."

it comes from the impulse to be as "illustrative" as possible. it's the moment when bodies in motion match the iconic images in your head of what that action is. in that sense, the type of vision expressed by the "decisive moment" is more like painting or drawing rather than encompassing the full range of what photography can do. it's retrograde, backward-looking. after all, "mistakes" (i.e., "missing" the "decisive moment") take up most of the time that happens. getting these "off" moments was photography's real contribution to changing the way we see.

 

[RichC]

here's another way of thinking about the "decisive moment."

it comes from the impulse to be as "illustrative" as possible. it's the moment when bodies in motion match the iconic images in your head of what that action is. in that sense, the type of vision expressed by the "decisive moment" is more like painting or drawing rather than encompassing the full range of what photography can do. it's retrograde, backward-looking. after all, "mistakes" (i.e., "missing" the "decisive moment") take up most of the time that happens. getting these "off" moments was photography's real contribution to changing the way we see.

That's very true. See my essay "Photography and Time: Decoding the Decisive Moment". (Warning: it's 20 pages!)

Paintings of tableaux - scenes from Greek myth and the like - are all "decisive moments", and Cartier-Bresson simply followed the practice of Renaissance artists.

As my essay points out, Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment is simply the key point in an unfolding story presented visually (i.e. the compositional elements all support this key instant). Many people think that the decisive moment is the instant of maximum action, interest or importance: it's not - it's the instance that tells us most about what is happening (whether that's the truth or an "alternative truth" the photographer wants to convey). So, if photographing a couple, it's probably not the moment they kiss but the instance just before or after.

Using photography to look back to an old way of picture making, replicating a centuries-old way of painting, is not a necessarily a bad thing. I do too, though I borrow from the traditions of still life painting rather than tableaux.