Research into the concept of ‘the decisive moment’
Eric Kim says that H C-B believed that:
- “The Decisive Moment” was that split second of genius and inspiration that a photographer had to capture a certain moment
- You can never recreate the same circumstances in terms of location and people.
- You must constantly be looking for moments to capture,
- Once that moment is gone, it is gone forever
7 Tips How to Capture “The Decisive Moment” in Street Photography
- What is a “decisive moment” for you
- Follow your intuition
- Set it and forgetit
- Photograph what you’re afraid of
- Look for emotion and gestures
- What is personally-meaningful to you
- Work the scene
this is an interesting article from Petapixel, which explores the interactions between conscious (i.e., knowing) and unconscious (i.e., intuiting) awareness and how the brain works to link the two.
Extract from conversation on on student forum about a3 decisive moment.
https://discuss.oca-student.com/t/eyv-a3-decisive-moment-feedback-needed/6483
Comment by Clive White – OCA tutor:
I didn’t want them to be just an extension of cliché esthetics’
The decisive moment isn’t an outdated Modernist conceit, it’s an ever present appropriate strategy concerned with when you decided to press the shutter button. It’s the second most important decision the photographer makes after framing.
Some students seem to get the idea that they’re supposed to critique it in some way as an outmoded idea by redefining it or that they’re supposed to be critiquing the work of H. C-B.; as tutors we don’t really understand why the section has been read like this but the assignment, along with the rest of EYV is being revised and I’m contributing a case study from one of my students to help explain the concept and this assignment more effectively.
You are encouraged to critique it in the sense that one can consciously produce indecisive or non-decisive moments but in order to do that one needs to understand what a decisive moment is, some people are jumping straight to the critique position with out properly understanding the concept of the decisive moment and a spurious motivation.
The minimum requirement of this assignment is that the images should visually demonstrate the understanding of the concept without requiring any explanation or captioning when viewed by those familiar with the concept. It is not enough to say this is a decisive moment because I say it is. The image at the moment of capture should have a significance which is not extant at the moment before or the moment after.
Once that’s achieved the aspiration should be to make images which are not only decisive moments but to make them part of the natural progressive flow of one’s work.
Review the images you’ve made and decide if they meet the base criteria, was the moment you’ve chosen different in its resonance in any significant way from a moment before or after.
I think this really helps clarify what is needed from this assignment.
- it it NOT a critique of HC-B, but needs to demonstrate and understanding of the concept
- it should capture a moment in time that is different from the moment before and the moment after.
- the images should have aesthetic balance
I also had a look at a couple of blogs suggested by the tutors which were held up as demonstrating the required response to the brief
two very different responses and very interesting.