Henri Cartier-Bresson - The (In)Decisive Moment
Henri Cartier-Bresson's 'The Decisive Moment' is most definitely one of the most important photobooks of our current century. The common theme throughout his work is the composition of his images. The interesting thing about Bresson is his ability to compose his photographs in a specific way without a prolonged thought process. The idea of his 'Decisive Moment' is that he does not want to miss the moment by taking too long to decide or adjust his camera to be perfect, he just takes the photograph before the moment has passed. He does not care too deeply about the overall outcome of the photograph, but more so capturing the events in that specific time frame. However, due to his practise and skill of doing so, he has perfected the act of making a decision on the composition and lighting of an image, in a split second. Many, if not all, photographs captured by Bresson are composed in a well known way and often used in photography, for example using the Fibonacci Spiral and the Golden Ratio.
The photograph itself doesn't interest me. I only want to capture a minute part of reality. - Henri Cartier-Bresson
In this image, there are leading lines towards the central subject of a child running up the stairs. His structural use of the Fibonacci Spiral and the Golden Ratio lead the viewer through the photograph, instead of simply focusing on the centre immediately. This creates a balance in the photograph and is arguably more pleasant to view.
(In)Decisive Moment Journey
We were instructed to go on a journey and photograph the entirety of it, no matter the angle and no matter if there are unintended subjects in the photograph.
With my set of images, I was unsure as to where I was going to end my journey, therefore I mainly documented the beforehand. I am not particularly displeased with my images, however they are different to my typical style of photos. Usually, I capture images of the mundane things that people do not focus on or even see, but during this shoot, I mainly tried to compose my images as best as I could. I started this journey by getting on a train (the destination unknown to me) and got off at the last stop. In this case, I went to London Cannon Street. Although the city is well known by many people, I typically do not visit it, therefore it was mainly unknown to me. I had fears that i was going to get lost, but was reassured by the fact that I could find my way back with my phone. I wondered around from the train station and simply walked without thinking about my decisions twice, capturing photos along the way. I took photos without thinking to deeply about whether the lighting was correct and I took them even if I knew the outcome was not going to be as perfect as I wanted. If I were to have conducted this shoot differently, I would have ended my shoot in a particular location, however due to the fact that I did not know where I was, I could not plan to end my journey anywhere specific.
My first attempt with editing my images
With many of the original photos that I captured on this shoot, I realised that the settings on the camera weren't the best as I was trying to capture my images in a fast manner without thinking. This then led to me wanting to learn how to edit my images to make them look better, arguably. I was not sure as to how to edit my images and what looked 'good', however I used my limited knowledge on Lightroom and simply did what I felt was right. These images are not perfect, however, once I figure out a style of editing that I like, I will re-attempt to edit them.