Decisive Moment

For some time now I've contributed pictures to an online forum called Weekly Shot, and this weeks theme is The Decisive Moment. Yesterday I decided to make a picture that alludes to the concept of the 'Decisive Moment'.
So what is this concept of the decisive moment about?
In 1952 Henri Cartier-Bresson published his photographs in a book called The Decisive Moment.
As a photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson immersed himself in events and situations searching, looking for that moment when the elements of form and subject coalesce to complete the composition, 'to "trap" life - to preserve life in the act of living. .. in one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes'. In the book he writes, '.. that, if the shutter was released at the decisive moment, you have instinctively fixed a geometric pattern without which the photograph would have been both formless and lifeless'.
For this exercise I decided to make some pictures that told a photo-story, they would include people interacting with the environment they found themselves in, and I also hoped that I would be able to encapsulate the elements of this story into one frame, one composition.
Henri Cartier-Bresson at Wikipedia
Decisive Moment e-book Introduction

(0395) Posted on 5/24/2006 | Comments

1. Posted by funny on 5/24/2006 3:53:21 AM
Beautiful picture on Decisive Moment'. nice info too
its the Household Cavalry near St Jameson the screen

2. Posted by tony on 5/24/2006 7:46:18 AM
Funny, hi and thanks. The ceremony takes place in the middle of the morning with the Household Cavalry riding from Hyde Park up The Mall, alongside St James's Park, to change over at Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall.

3. Posted by bean on 5/24/2006 8:11:27 AM
i <3 cartier bresson

4. Posted by Greg on 5/24/2006 10:46:18 AM
Damn... I must be losing it, because I thought the Decisive Moment here was the hand of the photographer photographing a decisive moment 2 layers thick - the capture of the capture - which is the real capture .-)

5. Posted by tony on 5/24/2006 11:21:24 AM
Bean, hi and thanks for stopping by.

6. Posted by tony on 5/24/2006 11:43:33 AM
Hi Greg, you found it ;-] .. movie makers don't seem to have decisive moments - they're more driven by the idea of story-telling, while the photographer, trying to find a decisive moment, seems to be more associated with the temperament of a poet.

7. Posted by stewart on 5/24/2006 12:45:34 PM
How did you take this shot,or someone else shooting maybe? Is that your hand holding the camera.The Household Cavalry on the camera monitor for me is only incidental the rest is the shot.

8. Posted by tony on 5/24/2006 2:45:22 PM
Stewart, a tourist was holding the movie camera, I just had to find the framing and the moment the picture appeared on the other screen.

9. Posted by izZZ-YOu <-- on 5/24/2006 6:10:38 PM
Tony hope u are gr8! Miss visiting one of my faves :-) Like a bee.

10. Posted by w|e|s on 5/24/2006 7:49:38 PM
nice thoughts Tony. well done... Cheers Tony. :-)

11. Posted by tony on 5/24/2006 11:00:48 PM
Hi izZZ, it's good to have you buzzing around ;-]

12. Posted by tony on 5/24/2006 11:02:26 PM
Thanks w|e|s, all the best with your new camera.

13. Posted by robertm on 5/25/2006 9:05:26 AM
quite a tricky shot. I was wondering how you had done it, but stewart has already asked. Is the blurred red in the background also the Household Cavalry? - robert
8-O)

14. Posted by tony on 5/25/2006 10:05:23 AM
Hi Robert, it was tricky and fun to do. The 'tourist' with the movie camera was constantly moving so it was difficult to even get some semblance of an image on the movie camera screen, and people were packed around me so I couldn't move too much without bumping people around. The background is probably too indistinct, but is made up of people watching the event.

15. Posted by Odon on 5/30/2006 5:00:58 PM
I had thought that the theme was about digital cameras... But it's cool, I like the Cartier reference and concept of Decisive Moment in a shot.

16. Posted by Greg on 6/3/2006 2:44:52 AM
Peace .-)

17. Posted by twig on 6/4/2006 3:46:28 PM
Looks like Windows to me!
;¬)

18. Posted by tony on 6/8/2006 3:34:14 PM
Odon, hi and thanks .. the theme could well be about digital cameras, but the decisive moment seemed more interesting ;-)

19. Posted by Keystone on 6/8/2006 3:35:04 PM
Thats awesome!

20. Posted by tony on 6/8/2006 3:40:53 PM
Greg .. George Bernard Shaw said 'Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous' ..

21. Posted by tony on 6/8/2006 3:47:23 PM
Twig .. yep, another way of framing the world.

22. Posted by tony on 6/8/2006 3:50:56 PM
Keystone, hi and thanks!

(0395) Uploaded on May 24, 2006 | Flickr Comments

stewpic says: Good to see you on Flickr Tony

tonypraxis says: Thanks Stewart

twig® says: Flckr works Kwckr than .... you know who!
But no movies?

tonypraxis says: Flickr is OK (for now) - big corporate (yahoo) behind it - no movies - I put mine on my web site and make a link back to the log - you could try this - easy to set up and sustain in Dreamweaver.