Project: Modernist practice

The French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson (1908-2004) has been described as the 'father of modern photojournalism'. Among with several other photographers, he founded the influential Magnum Photos agency in 1947. His approach was simple. Using the fixed lens camera popular amongst the early Magnum photographers, Cartier-Bresson tried to make himself invisible; he tried to not be part of the scene or affect the image with his presence and waited for 'the decisive moment'. Man of his images are successful because of his ability to time when to press the shutter. Cartier-Bresson didn't have motor drives giving 12 frames a second or blitz whole rolls of film through the camera - he waited until it felt that something was about to happen and caught it as it happened.

"Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative"
(Cartier-Bresson interview, Washington Post 1957)

comments on the video....

The idea of the decisive moment is underpinned by the notion that this is something that emerges from the scene, ie it happens independently of the viewer. It could be argued, though, that the decisive moment is effectively created by the observer who decides what it is in some way 'decisive'.

My view is that to some degree this is a mixture of the two, the person waiting to press the shutter is in control of that moment and responsible for revealing to the viewer what that moment in the moment captured could remain a mystery to the viewer, who can only surmise the circumstances surrounding this. What comes out of the image is also down to the observation of the person holding the shutter, so in many ways this person is in complete control of the 'decisive moment', it will only be as good as the observation of the photographer, and at which moment he/she decides if the moment is decisive.