Decisive moment

cliveh · Jan 27, 2020

If you use a digital camera to video several seconds of an event and then extract a single frame as a decisive moment, will it have the same presence as a single frame captured at a decisive moment determined by the photographer?

I would say not, but can’t explain why.

Sirius Glass · Jan 27, 2020

The answer is "No" because the decisive moment is about taking a photograph, not a movie or spraying photographs with either a burst of shooting negatives or images. There is nothing decisive with either of those. Capturing the decisive moment is about developing the photographic eye, skill and timing, not voiding ones bladder against the wall.

Vaughn · Jan 27, 2020

I suppose it depends some of the mental attitude of the photographer -- if every instant they have their finger on the video button is as mindful as the photographer taking the one exposure at the decisive moment I would say that the potential of having the same presence in a single frame is there.

MattKing · Jan 27, 2020

For the viewer, yes, if they aren't steeped in photographic history and/or if they don't know how you got the shot.
For you, it depends on whether you care.
I expect there are "decisive moments" for cinematographers too.

cliveh · Jan 27, 2020

Let's take the HCB puddle jumper as an example. If this had been filmed in continuous frame mode would the same choice of frame emerge? Maybe he wanted a frame where the foot hit the water and emanated a shape to reflect the barrel staves in the water, rather than just before? Who can tell?

pbromaghin · Jan 27, 2020

Well, Joe Rosenthal got the Pulitzer Prize. Bill Genaust's body has never been recovered from the cave where he was shot.

Maris · Jan 27, 2020

cliveh said:
Let's take the HCB puddle jumper as an example.....

Puddle jumper? Too easy! Remember the scene is outside a railway station, Gare Saint-Lazare, where hundreds or thousands of people need to board or exit trains. And to get across that puddle outside the station someone has helpfully placed a ladder to get people part way across. Then it's just a case of staking out the scene and photographing everyone who has an athletic go at keeping their feet dry. If this particular "decisive moment " can be found on the contact sheets that come back from the lab well and good. If not, say nowt and move on. Panning through those contact sheets in the hope of a golden frame is aesthetically equivalent to picking a video frame after the fact.

Alan Edward Klein · Jan 27, 2020

If you look at some contact sheets of rolls of film where one of the shots became famous, you'll see the photographer took many pictures from different angles and times and then picked the "decisive" shot after the film was developed. These guys were human like we are. Give yourself a break.
https://erickimphotography.com/blog...ts-can-make-you-a-better-street-photographer/

jtk · Jan 31, 2020

Same as video editing.

jim10219 · Jan 31, 2020

A "decisive moment" is just a single moment that tells a larger story. It's not magic. There's no formula for it. It's just a moment where enough things come together that it's easy for the viewer to see the greater picture that extends beyond the image presented.

A "decisive moment" can be a still, a video clip, a still from a video clip, hell, it can even be an audio clip. If you romance it, you won't understand it. The key to capturing the "decisive moment" is having the sensitivity to understand when that moment is happening and what the moment means. Then you can figure out how to capture it.

Take "Puddle Jumper". What does it say? What's the greater story behind it? Why does it resonate? Why do you connect with it? To me, it's a story about modern life. A man who is obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. He's stressed. You sense that he's late for something by his long stride. You fear for his comfort and appearance, as you can see he's about to sully his clothes. You even fear for his health, as he's literally taking a leap of faith into the unknown (there could be a hole at the end of that ladder under the water). His image is blurred. He's a featureless individual, so he can represent all individuals. He's a nobody and an everyman. That stressful, yet nearly meaningless existence is what so often defines life in the post industrial revolution. We are treated as machines by the machines that run society. But we are not machines. We are people. We are scared. We are fragile. And most of all, we are just trying to survive and make ourselves valuable in a time when the value of human capital is at an all time low.

Did HCB plan all of this out ahead of time? Did he even envision all of that out after he took the shot? Probably not. But he did have the presence of mind to recognize the aesthetics of the symmetry that the water created. He did have the sensitivity to recognize the tension created by the decision to move forward and get wet or retreat and stay dry. And he did have the experience to know that the dynamism of a body in motion would enforce that tension. And he knew it was similar situation we all have faced. A universal truth, if you will. And that's why it was "decisive".

Sirius Glass · Jan 31, 2020

jtk said:
Same as video editing.

Except that video eliminates any timing skill of the photographer. Hence using video dumb down "the decisive moment" to idiocy.

Willy T · Jan 31, 2020

Decisive, I don't know.
"Decisive" made it into the canon, yet Cartier-Bresson had referred to a "fugitive moment", which somehow seems more apt and closer to his meaning.

So, doctrinaire matters aside, and in that sense, a captured perfect frame out of many, sure.

pentaxuser · Jan 31, 2020

Do we know that HCB didn't take other shots of other people jumping the puddle? If it was only one frame because only one man jumped the puddle then the action of the man and the speed of the trigger and shutter determined the decisive moment rather than HCB, didn't he? HCB might have been happier with the shot when the man was beginning his jump and still on his way up or may have been happier with him on his way down. We'll never know.

If HCB had an F5 then it is possible that he might have taken several shots at 8fps, surely and possibly chosen a slightly better decisive moment ?

pentaxuser

Sirius Glass · Jan 31, 2020

pentaxuser said:
Do we know that HCB didn't take other shots of other people jumping the puddle? If it was only one frame because only one man jumped the puddle then the action of the man and the speed of the trigger and shutter determined the decisive moment rather than HCB, didn't he? HCB might have been happier with the shot when the man was beginning his jump and still on his way up or may have been happier with him on his way down. We'll never know.

If HCB had an F5 then it is possible that he might have taken several shots at 8fps, surely and possibly chosen a slightly better decisive moment ?

pentaxuser

With HCB's experience, I believe he got exactly the moment he wanted. Much the same as I do. This is not a problem for good experienced photographers. Why is this so hard to believe?

StepheKoontz · Jan 31, 2020

When I shoot portraits now with my D4, I shoot at 10FPS and rip off 5-10 frames for each "shot". Looking at them later, invariably one frame from each burst has a slightly better expression on their face. I can't proclaim I am so good as to anticipate which 1/10 of a second slice of time is going to be that shot.

pentaxuser · Feb 1, 2020

StepheKoontz said:
When I shoot portraits now with my D4, I shoot at 10FPS and rip off 5-10 frames for each "shot". Looking at them later, invariably one frame from each burst has a slightly better expression on their face. I can't proclaim I am so good as to anticipate which 1/10 of a second slice of time is going to be that shot.

Seems like you've made a good point, Stephe - at least for me you have. I imagine that choosing the decisive moment gets more difficult the faster the action and the action may not have to be that fast for this to apply. Taking a decisive moment shot of the likes of John McGuinness in the Isle of Man TT at about 180mph might have stretched even HCB's skills

pentaxuser

guangong · Feb 1, 2020

pentaxuser said:
Do we know that HCB didn't take other shots of other people jumping the puddle? If it was only one frame because only one man jumped the puddle then the action of the man and the speed of the trigger and shutter determined the decisive moment rather than HCB, didn't he? HCB might have been happier with the shot when the man was beginning his jump and still on his way up or may have been happier with him on his way down. We'll never know.

If HCB had an F5 then it is possible that he might have taken several shots at 8fps, surely and possibly chosen a slightly better decisive moment ?

pentaxuser

guangong · Feb 1, 2020

Sort of like picking paintings from the scribbles of a chimpanzee. A better analogy may be hunting with a fully automatic rifle. The enjoyment in photography comes from the quest, usually ending without a trophy.

Ko.Fe. · Feb 1, 2020

I don’t like to use video for stills.
DM is load of BS under HCB brand and spread by uninformed.
Everyone who have seen his contact sheets and read how much film he used on trips knows it.

cliveh · Feb 1, 2020

I believe he took about 32 shots of the puddle jumper, as shown in contact prints. But I still think this does not equate to video capture and single frame selection.

pentaxuser · Feb 1, 2020

cliveh said:
I believe he took about 32 shots of the puddle jumper, as shown in contact prints. .

It sounds from what you say Clive that it was the same puddle jumper and he obliged HCB 32 times. Was he asked by HCB to jump for as many times as HCB wanted until HCB was satisfied that he had a range of shots from which he had a decisive moment. If this is the case then it would seem to fail to meet what I understand by the decisive moment unless each published picture of David Bailey's model who posed for him is classified as a decisive moment

Your post, assuming its accuracy, suggests that the decisive moment in the case of the puddle jumper is in a freefall into farce

Having said all of the above can you say what the source of your belief is?

Thanks

pentaxuser

removed account4 · Feb 2, 2020

hi cliveh
yes i think it would be the same thing, and it might even be more interesting because of the bleed of other captured miliseconds that appeared in the frame.
photography and videography are very generous there is so much more given than meets the eye. for me at least i really don't see much of a difference between
having a fast thumb to get to the next frame ( or auto winder ) to sort out what the best moment later, or a modern device with a motor to capture the time (whether it is a video camera or movie camera.) that said i can understand why purists if i can call them that would have trouble with that, because hcb and winograd and corneau and other street experts didn't/don't use a device that records images like that, and im OK with that...
but IDK for me it is like asking if making a rembrandt karshesque portrait, you know ( 4-5 lights, retouching on an 8x10 negative &c ) is really a "portrait" if compared to
a southworth and hayes daguerreotype, or a pt print made by nadar or brady, because the medium has advanced so much to remove some of the needed technical skill
that was required "in the beginning".. i think the whole argument is interesting but in the end often times only photographers really care about how the image is made
(unless the "story of the process" is needed) its the final image to a lot of people that count. this asks the question if the story of the process is all that is needed to make a great image, is it true that all chemical photography based images are superior? and does it matter if the person who made the exposures did not
process the film or turn the negative into a print? seems your cherry pick the video still out of the river of time would make the camera operator more in control of final product, does that play into your question as well ?

Willy T · Feb 2, 2020

in his own words: https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/derriere-la-gare-saint-lazare/

cropping; editorialising on the issue: http://zonezero.com/en/open/157-debunking-the-myth-of-the-decisive-moment

but, you know, what's it matter?

Vaughn · Feb 2, 2020

Willy T said:
in his own words: https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/derriere-la-gare-saint-lazare/

Worth quoting:

"However, the picture that defined Cartier-Bresson’s career was ironically one of only two pictures he cropped. He detested the darkroom techniques and to prevent his editors from cropping, he sent his pictures with a black border — the frame he himself imposed at the instant he snapped the picture. However, behind the train station, he couldn’t managed to do this:
“There was a plank fence around some repairs behind the Gare Saint Lazare train station. I happened to be peeking through a gap in the fence with my camera at the moment the man jumped. The space between the planks was not entirely wide enough for my lens, which is the reason why the picture is cut off on the left,” he explained in his usual laconic manner."

cliveh · Feb 3, 2020

pentaxuser said:
It sounds from what you say Clive that it was the same puddle jumper and he obliged HCB 32 times. Was he asked by HCB to jump for as many times as HCB wanted until HCB was satisfied that he had a range of shots from which he had a decisive moment. If this is the case then it would seem to fail to meet what I understand by the decisive moment unless each published picture of David Bailey's model who posed for him is classified as a decisive moment

Your post, assuming its accuracy, suggests that the decisive moment in the case of the puddle jumper is in a freefall into farce

Having said all of the above can you say what the source of your belief is?

Thanks

pentaxuser

In 2010 the July issue of British journal of Photograph featured a section on intelligence trends, with some images by John Maclean and text including a recent interview with Paul Graham from Aperture magazine. Graham makes the point that someone he knows working on the 2010 HCB retrospective at MoMA had seen the contact prints and told him "The decisive moment" is bullshit, referring to 30 pictures of people leaping over that puddle.In the 2010 August issue, I made the point that taking multiple pictures of a repetitive event, or the same scene is entirely consistent with his modus operandi.

Decisive moment

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