Source: Perfect and Unrehearsed

Interesting take on Cartier-Bresson’s “The Decisive Moment” with, as always from Lens, lot’s of great pictures. I’ve always been a bit confused by exactly what was meant by the “decisive moment”. This article helps a lot in clarifying things. The definition that I’ve heard most goes something along the lines of “the single short moment in time when everything comes together perfectly”. The moment comes and then is gone and can never be recaptured.

This article points out, however, that the original French title of Cartier-Bresson’s book was “‘‘Images à la Sauvette’’, which means “images taken on the sly”. In the article photographer Alex Webb suggests (in conversation with the article’s author) that:

To limit Cartier-Bresson’s photos to just a single moment misses the point. As Webb told me, Cartier-Bresson allowed him to see that there are ‘‘often multiple potential moments to discover in many situations — and that different photographers will find different moments.’’

There’s no single right answer, just as there’s no photographic formula.