Decisive Moment (1)

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Which picture?

Selecting a picture from a succession of images moving past the camera.

In the days of film, choosing the “decisive moment” (Cartier Bresson) used to be difficult, but now with speedy shutters, and digital storage, it is not.

Rowers on a river. The single scull approaches the landing.

In the first shot the single scull is too far away and the double scull is too close to the landing.

In the second shot, the single scull is just positioned right with a pleasing cluster of boats and landing.

In the third shot the scene has fallen apart. It is unbalanced and there is no connection between the single scull and the double scull.

On the computer screen we may have two or three or as many as a dozen shots to sift through.

See a short video on Cartier-Bresson here on the decisive moment.

Canon 5DII, 70-200 (200), f4, 1/3200, Colonia del Sacramento 101010

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Great shot

Case calls from the computer room: “Come here.”

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House: What is it? I’m watching ER.

Case: You’ll like it.

House: Who says I’ll like it? (nevertheless getting up from TV)

Case: Isn’t he cute? What do you think?

House: Hmph. My prognosis? If he doesn’t become vegetarian, he could get a parasite from all the fish fingers he’s being fed.

Case: Great snap don’t you think?

House: Admittedly a great shot. But at the risk of sounding curmedgeonly, I’d suggest if he’d been shot on 4 megapixels instead of 26 KB, he'd have stood up sharply at attention and his whiskers would been included, and this would have been a truly great shot. Timing is all, yes, or as Cartier-Bresson would have it, the decisive moment. Devil is in the details. Still, a great shot.

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Class photo

All look serious now.

Like this?

No, no, look serious.

Ha ha ha.

No laughing. It’s no laughing matter. This is a serious group photo.

Why?

It’s needed for the school paper.

Ha, ha. He wants a serious photo.

Impossible!

Later.

It turned out alright. By telling them to be serious they reacted the other way, didn’t cooperate as usual, joked around, and I got a decisive moment. The class chemistry was captured.

Decisive moment?

Henri Cartier-Bresson. Hero of mine.

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