THE (IN)DECISIVE MOMENT
HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON
Cartier-Bresson published book Images à la sauvette (The Decisive Moment) in 1952. This book included 126 images taken by him from the east and west. The cover was drawn by Henri Matisse and the prefece keynote was from Cardinal de Retz, "There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment."
He then applied this to his photography, saying " To me photography is the simulataneous recognition in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression" The black line around his images mean that there is no light sensitive film around it, proves the image was never cropped, he had to wait and that nothing was set up so he had to wait and take the image at the right time. Geometry is a key concept in his photos, they include lots of squares, rectangles, triangles, swirls and circles. This is bevcause he likes structures. I think that this makes his photographing style more interesting as he tries to look for a specific thing in every photo he took. |
"Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "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," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."
First Set
Taken in school
Here are some images I have taken around school that were inspired by Cartier-Bresson. I have taken particular inspiration from the lines and shapes in his images in this set, and I have chosen to ignore getting people in my images so I can focus on getting the main part of my image perfect. However, I think that these images would look better if they included people as after taking a few images I knew what did and didn't look good.
Here, I have used the same images I had taken before but changed them into black and white so they relate more to Henri Cartier-Bresson's images. I actually prefer the images when they are in black and white because the contrast can be seen more. If I were to take similar images again, I would try to include people as I think I would be able to show that Cartier-Bresson was my inspiration easier and that there would be more of a connection of the images.
Second Set
Taken in school
This is another set of images I have taken in school that are inspired by Cartier-Bresson. I think that these images are much better than the last ones because they include people. I think that including people has made my work look much more interesting because it gives the viewer something else to look at, it lets the viewer try to see what they're doing.
NICK WAPPLINGTON
The Indecisive Moment
Nick Waplington
Documenting a Journey
Kidbrooke
Charing Cross
Embankment
Winter Wonderland
For my response to Nick Waplington and Henri Cartier-Bresson I decided to document my trip to Winter Wonderland 23/12/16. To take these images I used a small Sony digital camera. I decided to use this camera because I just wanted to focus on capturing the images without having to worry about changing the cameras settings. I decided to document my trip to Winter Wonderland because I hadn't been there before so it was unfamilliar and I was with my family.
I think that my photographs are similar to the ones that Nick Waplington takes as I didn't necessarily have anything specific that I wanted to take images of. I'd say that some of my images could be considered to be like his Living Room series because I was comfortble with who I was taking images of and they weren't posing for the images.
'Really good to keep everything.'
'Never throws images away - Keeps work even if its bad.'
These sets of images are made up of every image I took that day. I kept them all even if I thought they didn't look as good as they could have. I don't necessarily think many of my images are 'bad' I just think they're different. I think that the station images are the most interesting as the images are busy and blurry.
To take the portraits of my family members I stood behiend them and called their name. I tried to take the image almost as soon as they turned around so I wouldn't necessarily get an image of them smiling. However, as I was pointing a camera at their faces, they smiled and I took the image then.
I think that my photographs are similar to the ones that Nick Waplington takes as I didn't necessarily have anything specific that I wanted to take images of. I'd say that some of my images could be considered to be like his Living Room series because I was comfortble with who I was taking images of and they weren't posing for the images.
'Really good to keep everything.'
'Never throws images away - Keeps work even if its bad.'
These sets of images are made up of every image I took that day. I kept them all even if I thought they didn't look as good as they could have. I don't necessarily think many of my images are 'bad' I just think they're different. I think that the station images are the most interesting as the images are busy and blurry.
To take the portraits of my family members I stood behiend them and called their name. I tried to take the image almost as soon as they turned around so I wouldn't necessarily get an image of them smiling. However, as I was pointing a camera at their faces, they smiled and I took the image then.