Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
I've poked around a little bit, and I can find no image thread dedicated to "the decisive moment." It's a phrase coined, I believe, by Henri Cartier-Bresson (HCB), and often refers to street or documentary photography, but it could occur in any photographic genre. It's a flickering, ephemeral moment when all the elements align just so, and an instant later, it's gone. Two of HCB's shots that crystallize the decisive moment are the person jumping over the puddle and the bicyclist zipping by the staircase.
And it doesn't have to be a photograph of a person. It could be any fluid, changing situation. Of course, one could argue that any time you freeze a moment in a dynamic scene with a still photograph, you have created a decisive moment.
Nevertheless I'm willing to bet that the folks who participate here at www.seriouscompacts.com know a decisive moment when they see one, and further that everyone here has captured his or her own decisive moments.
I'll start the ball rolling with my own decisive moment, captured just a few days a go. I get up early and see the sun rise most mornings. On this particular morning, there was a spectacular cloud formation to the south, and I stepped outside with my FZ200 to capture it. I took a few shots and was about to go in when a handful of Canada geese went tearing by overhead. The second shot I took of them captured my Canadian friends just as they were silhouetted against a patch of clear sky. It was pure luck and, in my view, a decisive moment.
So what's your decisive moment, and what's the story behind it?
Cheers, Jock
Note to administrators: I couldn't figure out where to post this; feel free to move it wherever is appropriate.
And it doesn't have to be a photograph of a person. It could be any fluid, changing situation. Of course, one could argue that any time you freeze a moment in a dynamic scene with a still photograph, you have created a decisive moment.
Nevertheless I'm willing to bet that the folks who participate here at www.seriouscompacts.com know a decisive moment when they see one, and further that everyone here has captured his or her own decisive moments.
I'll start the ball rolling with my own decisive moment, captured just a few days a go. I get up early and see the sun rise most mornings. On this particular morning, there was a spectacular cloud formation to the south, and I stepped outside with my FZ200 to capture it. I took a few shots and was about to go in when a handful of Canada geese went tearing by overhead. The second shot I took of them captured my Canadian friends just as they were silhouetted against a patch of clear sky. It was pure luck and, in my view, a decisive moment.
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So what's your decisive moment, and what's the story behind it?
Cheers, Jock
Note to administrators: I couldn't figure out where to post this; feel free to move it wherever is appropriate.