Watch the Henri Cartier-Bresson documentary ‘L’amour de court’ (‘Just plain love’, 2001) available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/106009378 [accessed 19/01/18]
Write up your research on the decisive moment in your learning log taking care to give a proper account of the three differing views offered above, and any further research you’ve undertaken independently. What do you feel personally about the decisive moment as a visual strategy, or just as a way to take pictures? Conclude your post with your own perspective on the debate at this point in time.
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I started by watching the documentary ‘L’amour de court’ (‘Just plain love’, 2001).
I was amazed by Bresson's work, I absolutely adore it.
I also enjoyed to have a glimpse into how he create and make his art, and his rebellious, however so gentle approach and personality.
I love his aesthetics!
I also watched this fascinating video exploring how Bresson's work works and how he took his photos, this helped me to understand better his process and also inspired me for the assignment of Part 3
I then proceeded to understand better why everyone uses the term 'the decisive moment' because it seemed to me as if he was using his sense of composition and beauty by the way he actually looked, and the term 'the decisive moment' sounded very forceful and almost 'planned' to me.
I got the feeling from the movie and some other resources I was watching, that he was always looking at the world with a photographer's eye and always looking at beauty even when taking photo assignments about war and other 'non-beautiful' projects.
The decisive moment basically means, this moment is a fleeing moment which can not be replicated or done again, it is a moment in time, not a story but a photograph.
“Photography, is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Source: Colombia University
I actually looked at a lot of links, but I chose to put this link first on my research because I loved how Agnès Sire - the director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson's foundation said he actually didn't use the phrase 'The Decisive Moment', this was actually translated to english from the french title 'Images a' la sauvette' which actually means 'Images on the run' (or quickly taken -"before the police/ authorities come and get him" as Agnès describes it on the interview).
'The decisive moment' came from the quote the book starts with.
“There is nothing in this world that does not bear a decisive moment.”
Jean-Francois Paul de Gondi
Bresson actually hated the translation to the english title and didn't like when people referred this name to his work.
This was making a lot of sense to me, because it feels to me that the decisive moment is too un-natural while Bresson obviously was planning and looking for the composition and the aesthetics but it was a creative expression which involved the subjects, and natural environment and also his creativity, his mind, his expression and so much more!
Therefore I believe the criticism about the decisive moment is because the initial description of it is problematic.
I think in general a photographer is expressing his/ her creativity and story by taking photos and any of these moments whether they are planned or not, whether they are so called 'decisive' or not - they are all moments in time and a creative expression.
I think film photography nowadays is something which make us all look!
I remember when my partner asked me - how come every frame you take on the film camera looks amazing? and my answer was - because I don't just click, I actually look and wait for the right moment.
I think this video i found describes the decisive moment and it's criticism in a great way.
Ted Forbes refer to Robert Frank as an opposite to Henri Cartier Besson's approach, So I wanted to research him as well to see his photography.
I think the idea of the rebel or critique against the 'decisive moment' is that Bresson was using very traditional composition 'rules' which actually lived in his eyes and his look at the world, while other more progressive photographers wanted to rebel the 'rules' and create something different which didn't necessarily involve rules like 'rule of thirds' 'the golden ratio' and so forth.
However, as Ted Forbes describe on this video - you probably have to learn / know the rules in order to bend or rebel them.
So I think it is important to learn composition rules and aesthetics but the most important part is to look.
I also liked the part two of this talk
(I really liked the photo Ted was showing on the video of Greg Booth - I tried to research his work but didn't find so much of his work)
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