The Decisive Moment: My Approach to this assignment

The Decisive Moment: My Approach to this assignment

Brief

Send a set of between six and eight high-quality photographic prints on the theme of the ‘decisive moment’ to your tutor. 

You may choose to create imagery that supports the tradition of the ‘decisive moment’, or you may choose to question or invert the concept. Your aim isn’t to tell a story, but in order to work naturally as a series there should be a linking theme, whether it’s a location, an event or a particular period of time.

Submit assignment notes of between 500 and 1,000 words with your series. Introduce your subject and describe your ‘process’ – your way of working. Then briefly state how you think each image relates to the concept of the decisive moment.

Check your work against the assessment criteria for this course before you send it to your tutor.

 

In my previous post I indicated my view that the “Decisive Moment” relies on a compositional style and reflects a particular moment describing the human condition; and my aim for this assignment is to produce a series of images “whose composition possesses such vigour and richness and whose content so radiates outward from it that (each) single picture is a whole story in itself”.

The work of Cartier-Bresson and his contemporaries was made using film. For an exercise like this where the aim is to capture a particular moment and composition, this presents certain challenges over the use of digital cameras. With the latter, it is easy to use a fast continuous shooting mode and subsequently choose an image where the compositional elements and subject meet the photographer’s aim. While the setting and overall timing is determined by the photographer, there is an element of randomness and chance (or luck) involved in this. This is similar to the work of Jon Rathman, Nine Eyes of Google Street View, (https://9-eyes.com/ accessed 11/09/2019), which has been described as a “conceptual meditation on the state of photography in a time of automated imagemaking” (https://anthology.rhizome.org/9-eyes accessed 11/09/2019). There is an element of automated image making involved in the use of continuous shooting.

Thus as this assignment is primarily a learning exercise for me, I have decided to use film for this. In this way I hope to gain an insight into the work of Cartier-Bresson, and the significance of the timing of releasing the shutter in the creation of this image.

 

Technical Information

I have made most of the images using 35mm film with Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 cameras, although for some I have used a Hasselblad 503CXi medium format  I used Ilford FP4+ and Ilford HP5+ film, the former rated at 125 ISO, and the latter at 800 ISO. This allows both films to be developed with the same development times and gives a slightly wider range of ISO than would the standard rating for HP5+.

Film has been developed in Ilford Ilfotec DD-X, and Ilfostop and Rapid Fixer. Prints have been made on Ilford Multigrade RC paper, developed with Multigrade developer (and Ilfostop and Rapid Fixer).

I have scanned these images for inclusion in this learning log, but will submit the prints to my tutor and for final assessment.

 

Initial Approach

As an important element of the final image is the compositional elements of the image to produce “balance, harmony, simplicity, and unity”, I have sought locations with strong geometric features against which I could capture the “unique, fleeting, and meaningful moment”.

My contact sheets for the first shoots, aimed at identifying suitable locations are shown here.

 

Larger prints of some of these show that I should be able to capture people against these backgrounds and in a way that provides a compositionally attractive way, incorporating the meaningful moment. This dam wall and other sites near my home have strong lines against which subjects can be photographed.

 

However first attempts at capturing subjects in these settings have not been particularly successful technically, mainly due to not having suitable telephoto lens for the location.

However I have some images which appear promising and I will discuss later in my final submission.

I particularly like this in which I try to emulate Kertesz’s image, Meudon and bring it to a contemporary setting with the man and parcel replaced by the motor cycle courier and Amazon delivery van, and steam train by electric suburban train.