Topic: Le Moment Decisive?

[canonetc]

Hello All,

I'm sure this has been discussed at length here at RFF, but I'd like to bring it up again and hear anyone's thoughts on the subject: the decisive moment.

I read (somewhere, wish I could recall, maybe in one of HCB's books) that the term "the decisive moment" was coined by a bishop or priest from the 18th century. It goes like, "In all things, there is nothing which does not have a decisive moment." Cardinal Richlieu...?

Well, I thought a lot about this, and tried to cut it down to something I could use, and ended up with, "In everything there is a decisive moment."

So, using this like a mantra (!) I would roam the streets camera in hand. I found this began to affect my thinking; it made me begin to believe it, and gave me a perspective that said, "there's an image to be found everywhere, in anything, at all times. It's all a matter of seeing......"

It made me think that one goal in photography, said before by others, is in seeing the interesting and beautiful in the mundane or the otherwise taken-for-granted. Which, as we know, HCB and others here at RFF have done.

That said, I'd love to hear more thoughts on this, the decisive moment. If the subject has been kicked to death already, then.....never mind!

Chris
canonetc

 

[Pherdinand]

In fact, as far as I know originally HCB does not use the word "decisive"; the french expression he uses means not exactly decisive moment.

A long discussion about this sits somewhere in the archives of photo.net; it dates from the days right after HCB died i think.

Anyway, you say ""there's an image to be found everywhere, in anything, at all times. It's all a matter of seeing......"" - i tend to agree with that; however seeing is not enough. Plenty of occasions in my case, when i see that it's a good opportunity, it's a potentially great image, and when i look at the cruel touchable result, the magic is nowhere.

 

[marceloporto]

Just did a quick googling on some French history and literature sites. 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). I could not yet locate the original text, but it would be interesting to understand the context...will look a little bit more.

Cheers, Marcelo

 

[marceloporto]

Hey, just found 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. Not bad!

Marcelo

 

[canonetc]

Topic: Le Moment Decisive?

Very cool. "ruling" could also apply to measurement....and thus composition...

Chris
canonetc

 

[back alley]

i have read that hcb didn't even use the the 'decisive moment' phrase himself but a book publisher changed the title of his book because he didn't like hcb's title.

joe

 

[nwcanonman]

Carpe' Photem - LOL.

 

[Bertram2]

Hey, just found 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".
Marcelo

Thanks Marcelo, I just had begun to search my HCB books for that quote, you were faster.
Tho there is undoubtedly a piece of truth in the first half of this quote I never have completely understood what this really means to me as an photographer.
If at all it has a meaning then it is IMHO related to a certain kind of photography, La Photographie Humaine, for which the names HCB, Doisneau, Boubat , Capa, Ronis, Izis and others stood .
They all had the talent to catch a slice of life ( I love this word !) in a way, which made the photo look like life, I mean vicid, dynamic, a frozen split of a second.
Maybe it would be better to say the RIGHT moment but this would not sound so interesting and important.
HCB itself has been a modest and honest man of manors, but his work was more in the focus of those who are as buyers or sellers part of the "art" scene, more than Doisneau's work had been there for example.
And maybe this "decisive" quote was chosen by a publisher as one of the pompous ornamentations blind bourgeois art consumers need to feel sure
about the importance of an artist's work . 🙄
Best,
Bertram

 

[RML]

The true quote is in the book "Bystander" and it is completely different from the ones quoted in this thread. I'm at work so I don't have the book here with me. Maybe someone else can find it before I get home later today?

 

[marceloporto]

From a article in the National Photographers Press Association about HCB:

"Henri justly achieved journalistic recognition in 1948 and 1949 for his coverage of Gandhi’s death in India and the Maoist revolution in China, but it was the 1952 publication of his book The Decisive Moment that firmly established his place in the history of photography. Essentially a portfolio of 126 photos, half from the East, half from the West, it announced itself as a work of art with a cover drawn by Matisse — the only color of the book. But it was Henri’s 4,500-word philosophical preface that did the trick. He wrote it first in French, taking his text from the 17th-century Cardinal de Retz: “Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif.” (“There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment.”) Henri applied this to photography: “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 which give that event its proper expression." Wow, I thought when I first read it, that’s what photojournalism is all about! Tériade, the Greek-born French publisher whom Henri idolized, gave the book its French title, Images à la sauvette, which could be loosely translated as “Shooting on the run.” It was the American publisher, Dick Simon of Simon & Schuster who, inspired by the cardinal, came up with the English title The Decisive Moment. That’s the one that stuck. And it was the late Margot Shore, then Magnum’s Paris bureau chief, who painstakingly worked with Henri on the English translation of the preface."

The source of the original (XVIIth century) appears to be the same (Cardinal de Retz), but it would seem from this source that it was indeed the editor who came up with the famous words.

Marcelo