As well as talking about my photographs i would also like to tell you about the photographers i admire there names are Nan Gouldin, Diana Arbus, Martin Parr and Carte Bresson and this is only a few of the genius of photography that i admire over time i want to tell you why i admire them an post some essays that have been written about them.
The essay that i am posting today is about Carte Bresson and i found it in a past exam paper.
The decisive moment
Henri Cartier-Bresson, (1908-2004), the legendary photographer, coined the term “the decisive moment” to refer to photography’ so unique ability to freeze time, to capture moments in an instant, be it a fleeting emotion between two lovers, peak sports action or tragedy amid war and upheaval. He believed that there was nothing in the world that did not have a decisive moment and there was just a creative fraction of a second for a photographer to know when to click the camera. Part of being able to capture the decisive moment is practice and, just as in fishing, it requires great patience and flawless reflexes. I’ve learned that sometimes the best moments happen after or before an actual event. The first instance that comes to mind is trying to make a telling picture of a child blowing out birthday candles. You wait for the child to perform and most often you’ll get a passable photo of a kid with billowing cheeks blowing out candles. But with more experience you wait for the instant just after the candles go out, when the child looks up from the cake, his or her face flush with excitement and achievement amid a wreath of candle smoke.
One of my favourite shots during my time as a children’s photographer was of twin toddler boys sitting side by side on a couch in their parents’ living room. During the shoot Lasted the mother to place her older son’s electric guitar – something they were never allowed to touch – in their lap. The ecstatic looks on the boys’ faces – the decisive moment, to be sure – was the best picture of the session. The smallest thing, the little human detail, can be a great subject and when you capture it and everything else falls together, it is a wonderful feeling. Photography is unique among the visual arts, not only because a photograph cannot be created from memory, but because the subject of the photograph – and not really the photographer – determines absolutely what the depiction will be. “Photography shows us things that lie beyond our imagination and compel our amazement because they really happened,” said writer David Jenkins. That’s why I cringe to hear people dismissing the idea of the decisive moment as outmoded and irrelevant today because a picture or photograph can now be patched together from different digital elements. Sure it can. Just don’t call it photography.
hope you enjoyed reading the essay as much as i enjoyed reading it
