Capturing the moment

The second exercise in this chapter looks at Capturing the Moment.

As the notes point out, the concept (or more completely the "decisive moment") comes from Cartier Bresson and his famous image Derriere la Gare Saint-Lazare from 1932:

“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,” he explained. It is one of THE iconic photographs ever taken, with some even believing Cartier Bresson was having premonitions of a continent on the verge of a huge leap politically, albeit in the wrong direction. That is surely incorrect: this is a fine image caught at a perfect moment, period.

The decisive moment does not have to be an action; it can be a stare or a gaze; it can be a significant juxtaposition of occurrences, people or objects, or a combination thereof.As the notes point out, sometimes you can predict a decisive moment and wait for it, sometimes it just happens as you click; certainly the advent of digital imaging has made the latter more common.

The normal approach for exercises is to take new images specifically for the exercise. I did take some images but also added some recent ones taken not specifically for the exercise but simply because I like to capture the moment in my photography generally and thought it useful to use some different occasions and images to demonstrate how the moment can emerge; indeed, how it can be defined, as we all have a slightly different idea of whether an image is truly worthy of the epithet "capturing the moment".

The first few images are of children:

This was a classic wait for the moment shot. I wanted the girl to look away - better then looking at me as it captured the distant look in her eyes, and also captured the catch lights.

Technically, this is not a great image, the child being slightly out of focus due to wide aperture. But the object here is to see the moment; in this image the intimacy of father and child.

I sat for some time next to this mother and child. The boy was eating an ice cream and looked at me with lips covered in chocolate - sadly the quality of the image was too poor to use but this is a fine replacement; I like the resigned "OK Mum, do your worst" look.

Kept the camera on the lad and eventually got the shot looking at me - a good example of the moment attained by waiting, whereas the previous one was more of "lucky dip" moment.

This remains a personal favourite, taken at Crown fountain, Millennium Park, Chicago. The moment is caught perfectly - woman lifts up boy and shouts across excitedly that she has him. The boy is perfectly at ease. 

I have talked at length about narrative and context in learning log. To me, this is an example of a conceptual single image. We know the US has had an uneasy history with race relations, and one wonders whether this scene could have been acted out in an earlier generation. A few decades ago,  would it be accepted practice for a black woman to pick up a white boy unknown to her ? 

On a second level, one cannot see this scene being played out in the UK - to many scares about child abuse, strangers with children etc. Teachers perhaps, but a stranger in a park? How sad, because I think we have gone too far in this country in so called protecting children. Surely children need to have trust in adults generally, not just those close and known to them. The horrible examples of that trust being abused have rightly received attention, but unfortunately at the expense of losing so much that is good in the vast majority of people. 

This image is a balance to all that is bad about the over-reaction to child abuse. It is simply a touching example of human care and attention. The expressions are the "moment"; the sub text goes much deeper.

This is a dual "moment". Some might say it is not a moment at all, but I disagree; the moment is the disengaged Mum and daughter; Mum looking somewhat commandingly towards the camera, daughter rather confused.

The moment here is the smile of the bookie to the right contrasting with the almost sneering expression of his colleague in the centre. The image was taken at Bath racecourse, and leaves one with the ambiguity of the bookies' sentiment towards their punter.

Getting to the top of Cribyn in the mist, needed to capture the expression of strain.

An obvious moment here, demonstrating an action moment as the police officer demonstrates what will happen when the torch is transferred.....

....and it is transferred.

End with a couple of moments captured at a wedding party. Firstly, the bride is caught having a wild fling with a friend...

....secondly, in a moment set up and waited for, captured the embarrassed smile as the girl realizes she is confronted with a range of drinks.

I enjoyed this exercise - I like it as an opportunity to catch much of the essential goodness of folk - not just the woman picking up the child, but also the bookie, the Mum wiping the face, the bride having a great time. Much journalistic photography is taken with the tragic moment, but my agenda is simpler and more positive: photography to capture the positive.

The distinction between waiting for the moment and it "happening" while shooting is useful, as demonstrated above.