***Challenge 5: The Decisive Moment***

[MHD]

Flyer contacted me yesterday with his theme for Challenge 5:

I had one idea for the theme straight away, inspired by one of the greatest photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson- "The Decisive Moment"
This article explains it pretty well.

So get out there and keep your eyes peeled for the decisive moment!

[gstark]

Coming soon, to a monitor near you ...

But Scott, are you really sure about this?

[MCWB]

*presses F5 repeatedly*

[sirhc55]

Time down south must be different to Sydney

[MHD]

Two minutes late

[Glen]

Great choice Flyer

[MCWB]

I've gotta say, this is a great theme! My mind is racing already, well done Flyer!

[birddog114]

An Excellent theme!

[Flyer]

Thanks.
I thought it would be fitting theme for such a special competition.

[rokkstar]

Excellent theme

[Aussie Dave]

Can I ask which article is referred to ?? Is there a link we can view this, or was it from a book/magazine ??

[Glen]

Flyer contacted me yesterday with his theme for Challenge 5:

I had one idea for the theme straight away, inspired by one of the greatest photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson- "The Decisive Moment"
This article explains it pretty well.

So get out there and keep your eyes peeled for the decisive moment!

Just click on the word "This" in blue, Dave

[Aussie Dave]

Cheers Glen

[gstark]

When I saw Scott's email with this yesterday evening, my immediate thoughts were that there couldn't possibly be a more appropriate theme for this challenge.

Arek - brilliant choice.

Gentlemen (and ladies): load your cameras!

[sirhc55]

A great choice - the decisive movement basically means ”snap shot” as later described by Bresson himself.

Well done Flyer

[kab]

Agreed, great choice Flyer. This should keep us on our toes.

Hmmm, the next firmware update with improved autofocus couldn't come soon enough

[Glen]

Great choice Flyer, I am about to go out and feel I should take my D70 with me "just in case"

[MHD]

What? You dont?

[leek]

A great theme Flyer...
Now I just need to stop thinking so hard...

[Onyx]

Henri C-B would be proud. Great theme Flyer, good luck everyone - we all know what's at stake here: our respective prides in front of the largest D70users crowd EVER.

[Nnnnsic]

Hmmm, the next firmware update with improved autofocus couldn't come soon enough

Seeing as what the theme is, may I suggest you not shoot with AF...

[darb]

what date ranges are valid?

[MHD]

From the date of the announcement (12:02 today!)
See the post on rules and dates which is a sticky in this section

[darb]

got it, apologies ... busy, you know how i am

[timbo]

What a great theme. Thanks Arek, I can feel the juices flowing already!

And thanks Birddog for your inspiring generosity. Personally I'd have been happy with one of your lovely wife Tran's pork buns as first prize. Their transfer rate is truly amazing

- Tim

[MHD]

Or her spring rolls... YUM!
They really were amazing

[gstark]

Or her spring rolls... YUM!
They really were amazing

Scott,

You missed out on Tranh's buns the previous week. If you think her spring rolls are good, just wait till you try her buns.

Sorry Birddog!

[Matt. K]

Great Theme!....but!

How you guys gonna plan for the decisive moment? If you plan it then is it a decisive moment? Or a fake decisive moment? What is a decisive moment? According to Bressi it is something like.."when all of the visual elements come together in a balance of" something or rather. If you have studied Henri's work then it is more like, you find a nice background and wait for something to happen. So how many are going to try and produce an image in the style of Henri CB? Will the winner be the image that most looks like a CB image? Hmmm. Looks like this could favour the street photographers. I think I'm gonna go for this one! Out of the way Henri...I'm shooting digital! I wonder?...Could this be a decisive moment?

http://www.pbase.com/matt_k/image/43203568
DOH! I just shot this today! I could have entered it! Too late now.

[johndec]

http://www.pbase.com/matt_k/image/43203568
DOH! I just shot this today! I could have entered it! Too late now.

But is he deciding to land or take off? I can't decide, so I would have marked you down

[embi]

Sounds great....consider me involved in this one

[sirhc55]

As I stated before a Decisive Moment is a snapshot - it is you, the photographer, that determines the moment - not the subject

[marcus]

Looks like I was a bit too early with this one (posted a few days ago)



I'm not really sure, I'll have to run through the posts and check!

[rokkstar]

As I stated before a Decisive Moment is a snapshot - it is you, the photographer, that determines the moment - not the subject

I agree Chris. I would say that it is when the photographer decides to press the shutter release button that determines the decisive moment. Be it on the street, in the studio, anywhere where the pointy end of the camera is facing.

[dooda]

So then how is the decisive moment different from any other picture taking moment...perhaps I should read the article.

And yes I am extremely lazy about this stuff.

[rokkstar]

Well, I think it was just a term coined by HC. I mean taking a picture of a landscape or a flower doesnt really require the decisive moment I dont think.

[dooda]

Yes but according to the article it is. It is any moment the photographer decides to freeze a moment in time. Just like when you wait for the candles to blow out, or the sparks to fly off the arc weld, so is the photog waiting for the perfect moment when the light hits the flower, or the perfect part of the season when the flower is in bloom etc. After reading the article I had a difficult time thinking of any picture that fits within the rules that isn't within the decisive moment philosophy. Granted I'm new to the decisive moment philosophy, but I take hundreds of landscape pictures in a decisive moment because of the mist that is there, or the wind blowing the snow around, or the calmness of the water, or the firey reds in the clouds. I loved the article but as a them for a comp I interpret it as simply taking the absolute best picture you possibly can, as they are all decisive moments...unless I've completely misread the article (which is possible as I'm hardly literate).

[rokkstar]

After reading your comments I think you're right Dooda. Perhaps it means essentially, any picture.
The photographer can apply and post hoc statement of :" that was the decisive moment to capture".

Landscapes and flowers then can fall into the same category.

[sirhc55]

It is amazing how conjecture rears its head in these comps - we all have a different idea as to what a theme means - the last challenge was a classic example of how different people viewed the subject in various ways.

My hypothesis involves giving a photograph a name that ties the pic to an emotion that others can identify with.

In reality - take the pic and think of a damn good title

[birddog114]

Same as an artist who's going to paint a picture

[dooda]

In reality - take the pic and think of a damn good title

Yes Chris but I particularly give these pics low grade, because it is simply manipulating the theme with creative titles, or forcing a particular picture in with a title as justification. The entries that get my highest marks are the ones that cater it to a theme. On that same vein, I generally don't like pictures that have titles that attempt to force feed me some kind of mood, like "loneliness", or "Peace". I say let me feel the picture instead of the picture steering me to a certain direction.
Perhaps Flyer had a particular idea in mind when he chose the decisive moment, like Bresson style street photography or something, because as I see it the theme is pretty loose.

[leek]

Hmmm... I can see that, once again, we've all got different ideas of what the contest is about...
Unless we get some guidance from the guy who chose the theme, I'm afraid that this is going to lead to the variable entries and voting patterns that we saw in the last contest...

In the article that was supplied by Flyer, it said:

It can be assumed that he was not talking about landscape photographers making pictures of immovable mountains, or still life photographers or architectural photographers. [And just as obviously, given the year of his essay, he was not talking about some poor soul trying to digitally manufacture a great moment after the fact in PhotoShop.]

What he was talking about was only one type of shooting: call it journalism, documentary photography, spot news photography, interpretative or environmental portraiture – even snapshooting.

When I first saw the the theme and before I read the article, I saw it as requiring a photo that captured a moment in time that would not happen again... an action, an expression, an event, a defining moment...
I definitely wouldn't expect to see any macros or landscapes or ducks (unless they were doing something very extraordinary) in this competition...

Maybe Flyer would like to give us some guidance before we create too many tangents for ourselves...

I understand what you mean about the title, but I feel that this competition should be more about the quality of the photograph than the cleverness of the title...

[birddog114]

leek,

When I first saw the the theme and before I read the article, I saw it as requiring a photo that captured a moment in time that would not happen again... an action, an expression, an event, a defining moment...

I think Baghdah or Iraq may have lot of these opportunities.

[leek]

leek,

When I first saw the the theme and before I read the article, I saw it as requiring a photo that captured a moment in time that would not happen again... an action, an expression, an event, a defining moment...

I think Baghdah or Iraq may have lot of these opportunities.

??? I'm sure it does... but so does Hyde Park, Botanical Gardens and your local street...

[sirhc55]

I have just emailed the Louvre to remove the title of the Mona Lisa and the Scream et al - my thoughts have always been that some pics do tell a story. But, in saying that, the tag ”every picture tells a story” is, in itself, a misnomer.

If we see a pic of Putin meeting Bush we really do not need a title, but if Putin was meeting a scientist only known in Russia, we would need a title.

Any pic posted on this forum inevitably has some words to tell us what it is, where it is, why it is, etc., OR can we identify the bird, the flower etc.

IMHO words and pics go together like bread and butter.

As an example, Dave has posted some amazing pics from where he lives and travels - without words we would have no idea what mountain it was, where it was and more importantly why Dave took the pic

[dooda]

Absolutely Chris,

I like it better when the word sort of blankets the obvious minimum and the rest of the emotional impact is left to the image, for example a pic shouldn't rely on the title to be relevent to a theme, the pic itself should include it the theme...
But as far as my interpretation of your previous statement "Take a good pic and think of a damn good title" led me to believe that the title's purpose lies solely to connect the image to the comp theme, instead of describing the relevent information within the pic itself. Does this make sense? Atleast that is what I thought we were debating, as opposed to not having any title at all.

[Mark T]

Absolutely Chris,

I like it better when the word sort of blankets the obvious minimum and the rest of the emotional impact is left to the image, for example a pic shouldn't rely on the title to be relevent to a theme, the pic itself should include it the theme...
But as far as my interpretation of your previous statement "Take a good pic and think of a damn good title" led me to believe that the title's purpose lies solely to connect the image to the comp theme, instead of describing the relevent information within the pic itself. Does this make sense? Atleast that is what I thought we were debating, as opposed to not having any title at all.

I have to agree with dooda here.

For my entry in the last challenge, I purposely avoided using "three" in the title, as I wanted the viewers to discover for themselves how the theme was expressed through my photograph.

Perhaps for the current challenge every entry could be titled "the decisive moment" and if the voters don't get it, they vote accordingly.

[embi]

I definetly saw this as a photjournalistic type of theme. Something that would make page 1 of the local rag. Thats what I will be aiming to achieve anyway

[jdear]

my minds brimming with potential photos for this comp and the prize (very generous birddog) certainly is demanding I enter!

Ill have to try and borrow a D70 somewhere!

JD

[Nnnnsic]

Or a D50.
Or a D70s.

[johndec]

To condense the last 2 pages of posts... this is a photography contest, not a copy writers contest. Just ban the addition of titles and descriptions to the entries. An entry should be able to convey the topic all by itself, if it is so obscure or obtuse that it needs to be propped up with clever words, then obviously the pic wasn't good enough to begin with....