Research
Wells, L (ed) 2015, Photography: a Critical Introduction, Rougtledge, London
Pg 91
"...Henri Cartier-Bresson lay in wait for all the messy contingency of the world to compose itself into an image that he judged to be both productive of visual information and aesthetically pleasing. This he called "the decisive moment", a formal flash of time when all the right elements were in place before the scene fell back into its quotidian disorder."
pg 92
"The endeavour to make great statements gave way to the recording of little, dislocated moments which merely insinuated some greater meaning might be at stake (Cartier 1952)"
pg 343
"Unlike portraiture, landscapes are generally not staged, and unlike photojournalism, there is rarely a sense of "decisive moment" when content and aesthetics come together to create a telling image."
Badger, G ed (2014), The Genius of Photography, Quadrille
pg 104
"Its original French title, Images a la Sauvette, means images taken on the wing, on the "fly" - stolen images...But the idea of the "decisive moment", the instant when a prescient photographer anticipates a significant moment in the continuous flux of life and captures it in fraction of a second, has become one of the most seductive notions in photography.
The decisive moment is not necessarily about the peak of action. It refers, rather, to the moment when every element in the viewfinder coalesces to make a picture, an image. And that is open to misinterpretation too, because it could be taken t mean the coming together of the picture in formal terms, the point at which every formal element is in a state of balance, in perfect harmony...a photography where every formal element is perfect is not necessarily the decisive moment either. In fact, the decisive moment is better defined as the moment when form and content come together to produce an image in which the formal, emotional, poetic and intellectual elements have substance - in effect, where they give an image a real meaning."
"He was afraid that in the wrong hands photography of this kind could simply reduce the world to a series of clever patterns, visual jokes and, worst of all, anecdotes, which he considered the "enemy of the people"."
Zouhair Ghazzal
"Creating for the most part urban landscapes that are so monotonous and dull, that no decisive moment would be able to capture."
"Granted that the decisive moment is more of a cliché than a reality, even for its own creator, it still has the status of a myth with too much of an unconscious impact on photojournalism to be dismissed too easily."
"Yet, practically every serious photographer in the last couple decades had to forego the decisive moment to be able to create and produce - particularly in the U.S. and Germany - in territories where there are less and less decisive moments, and more repetitive urban landscape whose emptiness photographers are framing in sizzling colors rather than in HCB's austere black-and-white and its shades of grey."
"At its core, the decisive moment is indeed most anecdotic - composed of short accounts of humours or interesting incidents."
"Some of the top photographers of the last few decades, which willy-nilly did not base their photography on the decisive moment, would argue that the latter's major weakness was precisely its sole reliance on gestures. Walker Evens, who was probably the most decisive American photographer of the last century, did not have that many decisive moments in his large portfolio..."
Wells, L (ed) 2015, Photography: a Critical Introduction, Rougtledge, London
Pg 91
"...Henri Cartier-Bresson lay in wait for all the messy contingency of the world to compose itself into an image that he judged to be both productive of visual information and aesthetically pleasing. This he called "the decisive moment", a formal flash of time when all the right elements were in place before the scene fell back into its quotidian disorder."
pg 92
"The endeavour to make great statements gave way to the recording of little, dislocated moments which merely insinuated some greater meaning might be at stake (Cartier 1952)"
pg 343
"Unlike portraiture, landscapes are generally not staged, and unlike photojournalism, there is rarely a sense of "decisive moment" when content and aesthetics come together to create a telling image."
Badger, G ed (2014), The Genius of Photography, Quadrille
pg 104
"Its original French title, Images a la Sauvette, means images taken on the wing, on the "fly" - stolen images...But the idea of the "decisive moment", the instant when a prescient photographer anticipates a significant moment in the continuous flux of life and captures it in fraction of a second, has become one of the most seductive notions in photography.
The decisive moment is not necessarily about the peak of action. It refers, rather, to the moment when every element in the viewfinder coalesces to make a picture, an image. And that is open to misinterpretation too, because it could be taken t mean the coming together of the picture in formal terms, the point at which every formal element is in a state of balance, in perfect harmony...a photography where every formal element is perfect is not necessarily the decisive moment either. In fact, the decisive moment is better defined as the moment when form and content come together to produce an image in which the formal, emotional, poetic and intellectual elements have substance - in effect, where they give an image a real meaning."
"He was afraid that in the wrong hands photography of this kind could simply reduce the world to a series of clever patterns, visual jokes and, worst of all, anecdotes, which he considered the "enemy of the people"."
Zouhair Ghazzal
"Creating for the most part urban landscapes that are so monotonous and dull, that no decisive moment would be able to capture."
"Granted that the decisive moment is more of a cliché than a reality, even for its own creator, it still has the status of a myth with too much of an unconscious impact on photojournalism to be dismissed too easily."
"Yet, practically every serious photographer in the last couple decades had to forego the decisive moment to be able to create and produce - particularly in the U.S. and Germany - in territories where there are less and less decisive moments, and more repetitive urban landscape whose emptiness photographers are framing in sizzling colors rather than in HCB's austere black-and-white and its shades of grey."
"At its core, the decisive moment is indeed most anecdotic - composed of short accounts of humours or interesting incidents."
"Some of the top photographers of the last few decades, which willy-nilly did not base their photography on the decisive moment, would argue that the latter's major weakness was precisely its sole reliance on gestures. Walker Evens, who was probably the most decisive American photographer of the last century, did not have that many decisive moments in his large portfolio..."
L'amour de court
Initial thoughts
My paraphrasing - the large majority of people just take a photo, few full read the scene before taking an image.
Photography is a language, to use it you have to learn it
The infamous leaping man "it was just luck?" "It is always luck, luck is all that counts" - 17 min
"You just have to leave yourself open, you can't want it"
Part is geometery. I go for form first
When others are distant, HCB is on the lookout, ready.
Paused at 20.43
Initial thoughts
My paraphrasing - the large majority of people just take a photo, few full read the scene before taking an image.
Photography is a language, to use it you have to learn it
The infamous leaping man "it was just luck?" "It is always luck, luck is all that counts" - 17 min
"You just have to leave yourself open, you can't want it"
Part is geometery. I go for form first
When others are distant, HCB is on the lookout, ready.
Paused at 20.43