cd thacker Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 <i>Maybe the Decisive Moment refers to a mystical ability to take only the one right picture and not take all the bad ones that would be edited out later.</i><p> You might have something there. HCB was (is) renowned, I believe, for taking very few shots. Wait for it - put camera to eye - snap it - walk away. One moment, one shot. Simple, huh? Likewise Helmut Newton didn't burn a lot of film in his exquisite portrait work - much of which was candid, and a moment, and decisive - even if not strictly speaking a decisive moment. But I don't think there is necessarily any requirement to take just one shot or many.<p> I think the journalistic moments that S. Liu (my fellow cyborg :)refers to above are something altogether different from what HCB was doing. The decisive moment as I understand it isn't a newsworthy event, but documentation of synchronisity, pure and simple (though I recognize that the two can . . . coincide). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattalofs Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 I tend to think Andrew's right about the Einsenstadt contact sheet. There is no sense of the photographer exploring the relationship between elements until finally finding that one relationship that clicked. But it makes me think of something I read about HCB, and how much film he took to find a "decisive moment". Maybe he didn't take as much a Winnogrand, but from HCB's interviews/writings it sounds like there wer many undecisive moments. Andrew, we could probably have an incredibly un-intelligent argument about french translations, since I at least don't speak french. But I still think the term Decisive Moment is somewhat misleading. The french root of the crucial word can mean a variety of things; on the run, saved by, salvaged by etc. I think the last two are interesting in the context of what we know about HCB; images saved from oblivion seems a fitting description of what decisive moments are. I think the most interesting bit in the quote you posted is "you have instinctively fixed a geometric pattern without which the photograph would have been both formless and lifeless" because I think it highlights the importance of non-human elements that may have been in the frame even if it was taken 5 minutes later let alone 1/10th of a second later. Hmm now I wonder what the french for geometric is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Matt, I think that you're right in recognizing that the geometric relationships between elements, or at least their positioning in the frame, is an important part of the idea. Re translation, the title of the book doesn't literally translate to "decisive moment" (or anything close), but the quote I posted refers to releasing the shutter at a decisive moment, whatever the original French was. So I think we can credit the concept to HCB although I'd have to concede that the term "decisive moment" properly belongs to his translator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sliu Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 I don't agree with Andrew on Eisenstaedt's contact sheet. If you give that sheet to some one in a remote village in China who had never heard of Churchill and ask him which frame is the best, he would say frame 25. It captured a decisive moment of an old man. Churchill IS the visual element in the picture. You don't need more. The news/historical/political value of that picture is secondary. On the contrary, the RFK contact sheet is more photojournalistic. The content is more valuable than the visual elements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 heres my real entry... <br><br><center><img src="http://s93887327.onlinehome.us/kissing.jpg"></center> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 S. Liu, that shot of Churchill is not in any way a decisive moment; it's a picture of Winston Churchill adpoting a pose for which he was already famous, making the photographer's job easy. If you consider that Churchill probably held that pose for several seconds, it's not even an example of particularly good shutter timing. Every good picture doesn't have to record a "decisive moment." It's just a term HCB came up with to describe a certain kind of picture. Of course, you're free to interpret the idea of the decisive moment any way you see fit. I just think that if you don't consider what HCB was actually getting at, which is illustrated in the Sam Abell shot I linked to, you're shortchanging yourself as a photographer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sliu Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Andrew, First of all I am not a photographer (indoor or outdoor) but someone deeply interested in photography. It is unfair for me only to show you that louse image of the contact sheet and ask you to judge whether the frame 25 is a decisive moment or not. You are not a trained photo editor either. Seeing the "V" sign, you jump into the conclusion quickly without reading the image (you don't have the image to view yet, so it is not all your fault.) If you have chance to READ the image carefully, you can feel that it is one of the most decisive moments of an old man's life. You can almost see tear in his eyes. To explain that, you might need a Ph.D. in British history ;-) Now, as a fellow photo.netter, I want to say with good intention that if you are not satisfied with the "mediocrity" that you are proud of in your homepage, please learn to think visually, not verbally and be open minded to other people's work. Photography is more than HC-B and NG.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 S., you are redefining 'decisive' in this thread to mean just about anything, including what someone ignorant about photography would choose as a decisive moment, given that they don't understand the term or its context. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 (1): <p> <b> http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/bresson.htm </b> <p> <i> The decisive moment, as Cartier-Bresson tersely defined it, is <b>�the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."</b> </i><p> (2) <p> http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~potts/Photo.Manipulation/hcb.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 <i> Every good picture doesn't have to record a "decisive moment." It's just a term HCB came up with to describe a certain kind of picture. </i><p> Not only that, but that certain type of picture, along with legion of imitators, led to a revolt against the style by photographers like William Klein and Robert Frank. <p> It's doubtful that there always only a single decisive momement for any situation, although there are certain recognized moments of human kineticism that are more powerful than others (e.g. a point of a boxing punch, or a golf/basball bat swing, a jump), and, of course certain moments where something happens quickly that is either captured or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neild Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 <i>The "so what" factor can be easily tagged to any image today. It's really an easy thing to say. It's like saying "I don't like it"... to which I reply "so what?"</i> <p> I agree with you 100%, about applying it to any image at least! Even though my photos are also full of the "so what" factor, this doesn't mean that I don't like them - I am actually my biggest fan!! :-) In addition, the photos above, which IMO share in the "so what" factor, needn't be photos which I don't like: some are, some aren't. <p> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I think of it is this: when a photo has the "so what" factor, it doesn't mean that it doesn't show a decisive moment; rather, it means that the relationship(s) between the parts of the photo have little or no general interest perhaps. For example, the very first photo (by Bob Lazzarini) shows a person crossing the road against the 'red hand' - this does actually represent one of a number of possible "decisive moments" (the man could be anywhere on the road while crossing when the photo was taken, and it still could be called a decisive moment in this context). But it also has the "so what" factor in generous amounts. Bob probably likes the photo because he is the photographer (this is not meant to insult you Bob; I have a similar relationship with my photos). This means that he has a connection with it: he was <i>there</i>. For most of the rest of us, it is just a photo of a man crossing the street! I actually think it's a good photo: exposure & focus seem to be spot on... but it holds no interest for me because there's no connection. <p> The photos that don't have the "so what" factor are the ones that have mass appeal without the need for a personal connection to be made to the viewer (or perhaps it is because they can create the <i>illusion</i> of a connection with people when there isn't one - I'm not really sure. If I <i>knew</i> how to take/create photos with little or no "so what" factor, I would be doing it right now... :-) <p> If I'm way off the mark, please tell me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grant_. Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 youre way off the mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 S., congratulations. You've led me to discover a new concept in photography, which came over me like a wave when I read your latest post. I call it the derisive moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 "It's doubtful that there always only a single decisive momement for any situation...." In my view, it's obvious that there isn't. There might be one best shot, but that doesn't mean there has to be only one moment when all the elements come together. I wonder to what extent the notion that there is only one belongs to HCB, or to people interpreting what he meant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neild Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 <i>youre way off the mark</i> <p> Thanks for letting me know that! :-) Now, please can you explain your position to me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike dixon Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Maybe while we're broadening the definition of "decisive moment," we could broaden the definition of "genius" to include anyone with an IQ over 40--that way, we can all be a bunch of geniuses taking decisive-moment photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sliu Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 If you say it is not a "decisive moment", then it isn't. The opposite is not true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cd thacker Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 LOL! Sounds about right, Mike. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom h. Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Every time I take a roll of film out of my camera it has, depending on the film length, 12,24,or 36 decisive moments recorded on it. Whether any of them will please me (or a client)I don't know yet, but I do know I had a reason for taking each one of them. Decisive moment is a poor term anyway- subjective,and open to as much definition as vocabulary allows. Generally it seems to be a measure of the "OOH!AHH!" factor in street/documentary photography. Where does that leave landscapes? still lifes?abstracts?-Photographers look for decisive moments all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neild Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Looking over this thread one more time, probably the most "decisive" photo here is the one of the 2 boxers - nice one John! Even your other two shots, of the 2 guys 'discussing' a point, are not decisive as even here there is clearly such a large period of time over which the action unfolds that no one moment could uniquely capture the event... (appologies in advance to Grant for being way off again, and thanks to Mike for letting me a genius at the same time...) :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
._._z Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 <i> Where does that leave landscapes? still lifes?abstracts? </i><p> Seeing as this is the Street Photo forum, and the concept of the decisive photograph context was forumated, exposited and practiced by Cartier-Bresson (and a passel of admirers/followers) for street photography, it's not wrong to discuss the topic in the context of the understood meaning. That leaves landscapes and still lifes and non-street abstracts out, at least in this discussion, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Thanks Mike, you got me feeling a little special now.... : >) I dunno, I just can't get all that worked up about striving for "decisive moment" pix and trying to align with HCB. www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_somerset1 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 <i>"Where does that leave landscapes? still lifes?abstracts?"</i><p> In the same place they were before. Different genres, different paradigms.<p> Whether or not the shot records the "decisive moment" isn't a measure of its quality. It just means its a certain kind of picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manu_vermeiren Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 <center><img src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1336896&size=md"><br><br><i>just a picture</i></center> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._p.1 Posted March 22, 2004 Share Posted March 22, 2004 nice picture Manu! Is that Lucy & spouse in the background? <br><br> John Lo Pinto, to fill in some details: the Laocoon was made circa 25 BC on the island of Rhodes, unearthed (in Rome?) in 1506 after which it had a lasting effect on the art world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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