The Decisive Moment that Lead to the Decisive Moment

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004), is considered a pioneer of photojournalism, though he himself claimed to be a surrealist photographer; it was Robert Capa who suggested to him that if he wanted to get any photography work, then he should call himself a photojournalist.  Cartier-Bresson is revered by many modern street photographers, and rightly so. What many don’t know is that as a young man he spent some time in Africa, where he got into a bit of trouble, made heaps of sketches and then, finally something happened that changed his life and the history of photography too.

Cartier-Bresson was trained as a painter, and that really was his passion and way of recording and interpreting the world around him. In a sense he wouldn’t necessarily describe himself as a “photographer”; he said that he turned to photography simply as a way to ‘testify with a quicker instrument than a brush’. But what led him to this change, to the picking up of a camera?  Well, still in Africa, he saw a photo in a magazine. This photo:

Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika (1930) Martin Munkacsi 

Seeing this extraordinary photo by Hungarian photographer  Martin Munkacsi, Cartier-Bresson understood immediately that, ‘photography could reach eternity through the moment’. He realised the potential of the camera to capture the ‘decisive moment’.

So, that was that. He bought a camera and the rest, as so many say, is history. Using a 35mm camera with a standard lens, allowed Cartier-Bresson to work quickly and unobtrusively.  The title of his book, Images à la Sauvette (changed for US publication to The Decisive Moment) means images on the sly; in other words, candid photography. I am not fond of the word sly, but that's just me. We know what it means really don't we?

Cartier-Bresson insisted on strong composition. He used the viewfinder to frame subjects precisely, preferring to crop the image in the camera (though, contrary to popular belief, he was no purist and cropped images if it suited his needs or what he wanted to say).

He shot in Black and White because he regarded the camera as simply a ‘sketchbook’. It's as simple as this. Perhaps this point may be a contribution to the black and white versus colour debate in street photography? Something to think about at least. For Bresson the choice was not one of aesthetics; it was merely a practical choice that met with his requirements and purpose.

Anyway, I digress. This simple but lovely photograph of a moment of joy being expressed by three young boys was a decisive moment which prompted this great artist to produce not only some of the finest photographs ever made, but also to actually shape the history of photography and especially street photography. 

Or, is this photo really of a very ordinary moment that, with the keen observation of the artist who senses when all the elements just come together to form a harmonious whole, is made decisive because it has been recorded? Makes you think of all those unrecorded moments doesn't it?

A Rose by Any Other Name is Still a Rose, But Would it Smell as Sweet? Photography & Language

Recently I've read a couple of posts on various blogs about the language of photography. I don't mean here the ability of a photograph to communicate an idea or story or whatever. No, I'm referring to the language we use when talking about things photographic. There is a school of thought that asserts that the language we use is aggressive and violent. I would add one more word to these two: acquisitive. Obviously by the adding of this third word, you, dear reader, are safe in assuming I agree with the first two. Let me try to explain.

What do we say to describe what we have done when we press the shutter of a camera? We will say something like, "I've taken a photo", or if you are a little more posh you might say, "I've captured a lovely scene". And, let's say  you've been out with your camera for the day and you come home and your partner or whoever asks about your day. You might answer, "Great, I got some terrific shots." And, my favourite: you post a photo in an online gallery or group and one or more of your fellow onliners will say something like, "Wow. What a shot. You really nailed him/her/it didn't you?"

I hope by now you are beginning to get where I'm going with this. taken, shot, captured, nailed. All rather harsh words aren't they? And really, are they truly accurate or appropriate for what we do as photographers? Look at the image above for example. It is, in my opinion, a fairly good photograph of a father and his  young daughter. Looks like they are waiting for someone, or perhaps the father is watching something not in the frame. The child has seen the photographer (me by the way) adding a nice layer to the photograph's story. So, what do I say about this? I could say something like, "I took this shot on the weekend, and I think i've really captured the souls of these people, and I've really nailed the dad's hair, don't you think? I reckon this shot justifies the effort I made on that day to go shooting'. Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention that on that day I was really hunting good street shots.

This all sounds rather unpleasant,don't you think? Of course, don't get me wrong: I'm as guilty as the next 'shooter' of using this kind of language. In reality it is the language of photographers that has been used, I imagine, from the very beginning of the medium. However, it is possible, I think, that the time has come for a thoughtful conversation on whether we should continue using this language or whether we should begin to look at the true nature of our craft or art, and adopt more appropriate words to describe what it is we do and how we do what we do.

To shoot someone or something is quite a violent act; it's a term which is also associated with the use of a gun. A most violent instrument and certainly nothing like a camera surely? De we really 'shoot' with a camera? I think that on the whole there would be few photographers who would seek to harm their subjects with their cameras, so maybe shoot is not the right word for us to be using. At its very mildest a word like 'shoot'  just speaks of aggression.

I added acquisitive as a third way to describe the language we use in the photographic world. Words like take and capture (whether used as verbs or nouns) speak of acquiring or stealing or even kidnapping! And we are doing none of those things with our cameras. There is even a group on a popular online photo sharing site called Soul Snatchers (for readers eager to explore said site, a disclaimer: Before I saw the error of my linguistic ways I was a member of that group, but once my eyes were opened I deleted myself and my photos from the group). We are photographers, are we not? Surely we are not thieves?

This language speaks of what we can either do to our subjects, or of what we can obtain from them. I am beginning to think it might be time for the thoughtful amongst us to start to explore new ways of talking about our art (or craft. More linguistically loaded words) that speak more to what our subjects give to us, and what we can offer to them. I think there is a lot for us to think about here.

Many of us seek to find that decisive moment (thank you Mr Cartier-Bresson), that fleeting gesture, glance, smile. Whatever it is that has inspired us to point (not aim) our camera towards a potential subject. But whose moment is it? Whose gesture do we watch for? Whose smile? The answer is obvious: all these things do not belong to us, they belong to our subjects.

We are allowed into the lives of others, through their spoken or unspoken permission. We are granted access to their moments, their smile, their gestures. We are granted the privilege of being able to photograph people in all their humanity. I don't really want to sound grandiose or pretentious here, but we as photographers (and it doesn't really matter whether we are working at a wedding, a children's party, or as in my case, on the street) are entrusted with a sacred duty. We do seek to reach the essence of a person or other subject, to bring out the 'real' person or thing or whatever. We do seek to produce a true document to show the world (or our friends and so on). I will be the first to admit that there have been times when I may have betrayed that sacred trust. And, if I am to be totally frank here, I see images online every day that very clearly show a breach of trust sometimes amounting to gross exploitation.

I will also be the first to admit that the changing of a language, which really is a part of the culture of image making with a camera (AKA photography!) will be no easy task. I do not judge others for using those bolded and italicised words; I use them myself. After all, we all have to use a common language if we are going to understand or be understood. But I am trying to come up with new words. Like, 'I've been making photos today', rather than taking them; or 'I really think I've reached the soul of that subject' rather than capturing him or her; or 'I would love to photograph wildlife', rather than wanting to shoot animals.

And that word nailed is for me truly problematic. I don't have to learn a new word to use in its stead: I've never used it to refer to photography or anything else apart from carpentry or woodwork. It has other connotations which I have also never liked. Just goes to highlight even more clearly the importance of language and how we use it.

I don't have any answers really. I only bring this issue up because it seems that it is time for a new way of speaking about what to me is a true art form that has the power to change lives, end wars, enhance our environment, showcase the beauty in our world as well as to bring our attention to the ugliness that exists but shouldn't. In other words we are the practitioners of an honourable art or craft, and we really need to be speaking about what we do in language that does honour to, and speaks accurately about this art of photography.

But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good

Oh lord please don't let me be misunderstood

Thank you to Mr Burdon & The Animals for the snippet of lyrics from one of your great tunes.

Also a big thank you to Mr Shakespeare for the quote from Romeo and Juliet which I have taken great liberties with and paraphrased for my title. I am sure he wouldn't mind really.

The Moment is only 1/500th of a second

The great street photographer and gifted teacher and mentor, John Free, has several videos that can be watched online. One of them is called 1/500 of a Second. In it he contends that as photographers, and as artists seeking to capture fleeting moments on the street, we really only have 1/500th of a second to do it in. This refers to the speed the shutter of the camera opens and closes in. Not long is it? And that's what he says. I've watched this video several times now and each time it makes more and more sense: I have seen for example in one image I took, a young woman who looks on the verge of tears judging by the way she's holding her mouth. But in actual fact she was laughing and chatting with a friend as they walked. I just caught her in that 1/500th of a second.

The way I use my camera is that I tell it what aperture to use. This means I determine the size of the hole through which light passes to the sensor in the camera. The camera then sets a shutter speed which will give the best (in its opinion) results. After watching Mr Free's video again today I thought I would look at some of my recent photographs and find one that had a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second. What I did was pick one pretty much at random out of three candidates. And you can see that above.

Who is it? What's it a photo of? I hear your questions. Well, this image represents, among so many other things, 1/500th of a second of this young man's life. Not a long time, you might be thinking, in the big scheme that is a single human lifespan. So, we see a young man, caught in a flash of a second. What else is there in this photo to give us a clue to those other who, what, where, when, why and how questions. There is a wire fence through which he is looking; there is a set of hands behind him clutching the wire fence. Then there seem to be blurred figures behind him in the background.

We can look at his clothes, his reversed baseball cap. That could give us a clue. Maybe. We see the word "Original" on the cap. Another clue? Perhaps. We see a metal ring piercing his lip. Now we're getting somewhere! Well maybe, maybe not.

And this is where I must offer an apology. I am sorry, but I can't tell you anything about this photograph. Well it's not so much that I can't; it's more that I won't. You see, I am a street photographer, an artist at large you might say. My job is to capture that "decisive moment" as the master Cartier-Bresson described it. Or the 1/500th of a second as the great John Free has labelled it. Something in the moment before I aimed the camera, then pressed the shutter, made me do it. I can't say what it is. Call it intuition, call it instinct. Or you could even call it an artist's sensibility to the environment and situation.

You see, it is you, the viewer of this image who has to answer the questions. But, you reply, how could we possibly know? We weren't there were we? That's true: I was there, you were not. The gift that street photographers give to the world is this: we offer you fragments of time, decisive moments, fractions of seconds, tiny tiny slices of lives as they are lived in all their day to day ordinariness and banality. We also offer you, sometimes at least, dramatic slices of life, humorous fragments, sad fractions. That's what we do as artists: we communicate our vision of the world in our own medium at a given moment. For me, it is that 1/500th of a second.

I invite your stories of what this image is telling us. This is not a trivial "guessing game" or quiz; this is an exercise in bringing into life stories. It doesn't matter really what the 'facts' are; the key thing is what truth can be told through art, through this particular 1/500th of a second.

Peace to you all.

Man Jumps Puddle: A Multi-Part Review of Henri Cartier-Bresson Part 2

This is the second part of my little review on Henri Cartier-Bresson. It is not meant to be a long lecture, description or analysis; it is designed to provide a quick analysis of the image and to thus provide inspiration or food for thought on the issues or ideas covered briefly in the text. The review takes off exactly where it left off after Part One.

The four images in this review illustrate the photographer’s strong emphasis on composition and his ability to capture the decisive moment.

In the image of a man jumping a puddle (1932), we see the photographer’s knack of knowing precisely when that moment is coming. The image is tightly framed, drawing our eye to the decisive moment: the leap.

You see? Short and to the point. Here the image is the thing that speaks volumes and is allowed to speak loudest and unencumbered with my words.
Thank you.